.^ 


MAR  ib  1920 


BV  230  .D8  1919 
Duncan,  Fannie  Casseday. 
The  message  of  the 
prayer  to  men  of  the 


Lord' s 


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V 

tVIAft    XO 


FANNIE  CASSEDAY  DUNCAN 


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PHILADELPHIA 

THE    JUDSON    PRESS 

BOSTON  CHICAGO  ST.  LOUIS  NEW  YORiC 

LOS  ANGELES  KANSAS  CITY  SEATTLE  TORONTO 


Copyright,  1919,  by 
GILBERT  N.  BRINK,  Secretary 


Published  November,  1919 


TO 

THE    MEMORY    OF    MY    FATHER 

AND    OF    MY    AUNT-MOTHER 

AT   WHOSE    KNEES    I    LEARNED    TO    LISP 

AND    IN    WHOSE    LIVES    I    FOUND    ILLUSTRATED 

THE    BEAUTIFUL    LESSONS    OF    THE    LORD's    PRAYER 

THIS    BOOK    IS    INSCRIBED 


SnttBhnttxnn 


New  times  give  new  meanings  to  our  faiths. 
Each  generation  needs  to  have  its  inherited  faiths 
and  institutions  revitalized.  There  is  always 
danger  that  beliefs  and  faiths  will  become  crys- 
tallized.    Truth  is  a  seed,  not  a  crystal. 

Calamity  need  not  be  heaven-born  or  divinely 
ordered,  but  often  we  see  more  clearly  from  the 
valley  of  adversity  than  from  the  mountain  peak 
of  prosperity.  Spiritual  vision  is  far-sighted, 
and  from  the  depths  we  see  more  clearly  and  call 
more  earnestly  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord.  The 
whole  world  in  the  recent  extremity  has  become 
sensitive  to  the  divine  voice  and  sensible  to  the 
fact  that  human  beings  always  need  divine  help. 

While  every  soul  feels  new  needs,  every  life 
new  cravings,  and  every  will  and  heart  new  im- 
pulses, it  is  the  gift  of  the  chosen  few  to  gather 
our  aspirations  into  thought  and  speech,  our 
cravings  into  prayer,  and  our  impulses  into  reso- 
lution and  conviction.  Fannie  Casseday  Duncan 
has  performed   for  her  readers  this  important 

Page? 


Page8  INTRODUCTION 


service.  She  has  enabled  us  to  express  the  new 
aspirations  of  our  souls,  the  cravings  of  our 
hearts,  and  the  resolutions  of  our  wills  in  the  new 
meaning  of  our  Lord's  Prayer.  Thus  are  we 
able,  with  our  matchless  divine  Leader,  to  lift  up 
our  minds  and  hearts  with  the  hallowed  call, 
"  Our  Father  " ;  we  are  able  to  phrase  the  crav- 
ings of  our  lives  into  the  earnest,  sincere  petitions 
of  our  Master's  Prayer,  and  with  him  we  are  able 
to  say,  "  Thy  will  (not  mine)  be  done." 

With  new  reverence  for  our  Father,  with  sin- 
cere petitions  offered  and  their  answer  assured, 
we  make  new  resolution  to  do  the  will  of  God  on 
earth  as  it  is  done  in  heaven. 

Fannie  Casseday  Duncan  has  fully  justified  her 
right  and  call  to  add  one  more  treatise  to  the  in- 
terpretations of  the  Lord's  Prayer.  Truth  can 
never  be  made  too  plain  to  man ;  and  to  the  mind 
and  soul  seeking  the  secret  of  right  relations  with 
God  and  with  man,  this  treatise  may  prove  the 
key  that  unlocks  bolted  doors,  the  lamp  that  lights 
up  darkened  rooms,  or  the  companion  that  intro- 
duces the  reader  to  man's  greatest  Teacher,  and 
the  soul's  dearest  Friend. 

William  Arthur  Ganfield. 
Centre  College  of  Kentucky. 


3ff0r^tu0rb 


Why  another  treatise  on  the  Lord's  Prayer? 
The  world  war  brought  to  mankind  many  won- 
derful things  besides  our  victory.  Perhaps  the 
most  unexpected  of  these  was  a  recognition  of  the 
immanence  of  God  in  the  life  of  man.  To  many 
it  was  a  new  perception.  Face  to  face  with  death 
and  the  inevitable,  men  came  to  appreciate  their 
own  utter  helplessness.  Many  a  father,  his  son 
taken  from  his  side  and  sent  to  stern  commanders 
and  strange  duties,  felt  his  own  powerlessness  be- 
fore some  higher  authority,  and,  out  of  an  an- 
guished heart  and  weeping  eyes,  got  a  new  sense 
of  invisible  adjustments.  Many  a  soldier  wrote 
home  of  the  realization  of  eternity  which  came 
to  him  under  shot  and  shell  or  the  deadly  fumes 
of  gas.  Often  he  wrote  of  how  the  thought  of 
the  home  prayers  came  to  him  with  tremendous 
force  and  sustained  him  in  the  day  of  battle.  He 
told  that  over  and  over  the  words  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  learned  at  his  mother's  knee  and  half- 
forgot,  came  to  comfort  and  bless  him.     The 

Page  9 


Page  10  FOREWORD 


broken  body  and  shed  blood  of  thousands  of  men 
around  him,  who  had  gladly  poured  out  the  rich 
red  wine  of  their  life  for  a  vision,  gave  a  new  and 
deeper  symbolism  to  the  prepared  communion 
table  and  the  mystic  words  of  the  sacramental 
supper.  "Father,"  "Saviour,"  "Comforter," 
were  no  longer  mere  words,  but  passionate  cries 
from  a  human  heart  to  the  heart  of  God.  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge  had  called  prayer  "  the  forgotten 
secret  of  the  church."  The  world  war  made  it 
the  open  communion  of  mortals  with  the  Immor- 
tal One. 

Out  of  the  depths  have  I  cried  unto  thee,  O' Lord! 

I  am  come  into  the  deep  waters 

Where  the  floods  overflow  me. 

I  wait  for  the  Lord, 

My  soul  doth  wait. 

O  thou  that  hearest  prayer, 

Unto  thee  shall  all  flesh  come ! 

The  spiritual  needs  of  our  times  seem  to  call 
for  a  restatement  of  the  uses  and  beauty  of 
prayer.  We  live  in  an  age  saturated  with  ma- 
terialism. It  is  an  age  of  philanthropies,  of  or- 
ganization and  institutions,  of  charity  reduced  to 
an  exact  science  and  dispensed  by  paid  employees. 
The  saints  of  our  day  boast  that  they  do  not 


FOREWORD  Page  11 

"  dream  dreams,  see  visions,  communicate  with 
angels,  or  go  out  not  knowing  whither  they  are 
sent." 

John  R.  Mott  once  said,  "  An  alarming  weak- 
ness among  Christians  is  that  we  are  producing 
Christian  activities  faster  than  we  are  producing 
Christian  experiences." 

But  in  the  strain  and  stress  of  war,  in  the  dark- 
ened homes  of  the  Allies,  and  on  the  blood-soaked 
fields  of  Flanders,  the  prayer  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  came  into  its  own  again,  and  everywhere 
men  are  studying  it  with  renewed  and  serious 
interest. 

To  the  writer  of  this  little  book  a  call  for  a 
restatement  of  this  model  prayer  came  in  her  own 
hour  of  anguish,  when  all  that  was  left  her  was  to 
peer  through  the  darkness  and  find  God — Father, 
Saviour,  Comforter. 


jRAYER,  in  its  highest  conception,  is  the 
direct    and   purposeful   communion   of   a 

mortal  with  the  unseen  God.    In  its  lower 

form  it  is  an  appeal  from  one  in  need  to  one  who 
is  able  to  give  help.  There  are  few  who  have  not, 
at  one  time  or  another,  recognized  in  it  a  con- 
cealed force,  operating  in  some  mysterious  way 
among  the  affairs  of  men ;  and  few  there  are  who 
in  great  emergencies  have  not  made  more  or  less 
use  of  it.  Over  and  again  in  the  history  of  God- 
fearing nations,  God  has  appeared  suddenly, 
miraculously,    in   answer  to   prayer — as   at  the 

Page  13 


Page  14  THE   MESSAGE   OF 

Battle  of  the  Marne,  as  at  the  Piave  River,  as  at 
Mons.  James  Freeman  Clark  gives  us  an  inci- 
dent in  early  American  history  in  these  words : 

Our  pioneer  ancestors  prayed  the  prayer  of  faith.  When 
the  wind  howled  round  their  lowly  huts  and  the  storm 
rushed  darkly  from  the  forests,  when  the  fierce  Pequot 
and  the  savage  Philip  with  his  wild  tribes  of  Indians  lurked 
in  every  shaded  dell,  when  the  crops  failed  and  they  were 
about  to  starve,  they  wrestled  with  God  in  prayer.  They 
labored  with  God  in  prayer,  as  men  labor  in  plowing  a 
field,  till,  in  the  agony  of  their  supplications,  they  fainted. 
And  when  help  came,  and  the  full-freighted  ship  sailed  up 
the  bay  with  its  white  sails  spread,  like  some  broad-winged 
bird,  they  believed  that  God  had  sent  her  in  answer  to  their 
prayer. 

America's  latest  historical  national-prayer  in- 
cident is  reckoned  from  the  day  of  fasting  and 
prayer  which  President  Wilson  called  upon  all 
Americans  to  observe  for  the  success  of  the  arms 
of  the  Allies.  From  that  very  day  there  began  to 
exist  a  change  in  the  affairs  of  the  world,  and 
never  again  was  Germany  the  domineering  con- 
queror of  the  nations.  The  period  from  May  to 
December  is  short.  It  was  late  in  May  when  the 
whole  American  nation  went  up  to  the  temples  of 
God  to  pray  and  fast.  It  was  early  in  December 
when  General  Allenby  marched,  bareheaded  and 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  15 

on  foot,  through  the  gates  of  Jerusalem,  releasing 
the  ruthless  grasp  of  the  Turks  who  had  held  the 
Holy  City  for  centuries.  Meantime  the  Ameri- 
can forces  turned  the  tide  of  battle  at  Chateau- 
Thierry,  inaugurating  a  retrograde  movement  of 
the  Germans  which  spread  from  the  North  Sea 
to  Switzerland.  Many  times  ''  getting  right  with 
God  "  has  brought  victory  on  the  battle-field  and 
prosperity  within  a  nation. 


The  one  simple  secret  of  availing  prayer  is 
abiding  in  Christ.  He  himself  says,  ''  If  ye  abide 
in  me  and  my  words  abide  in  you,  ask  whatsoever 
ye  will,  and  it  shall  be  done  unto  you/' 

No  direction  could  be  simpler  than  this.  It  is 
like  a  guide-post.  The  3^oungest  reader  need  not 
mistake  its  meaning.  Why  then  do  so  few  per- 
sons prevail  in  prayer?  Is  the  failure  in  the 
Promiser,  or  has  the  one  promised  not  fulfilled 
the  conditions  imposed  ? 

"  IF."  .  .  We  are  so  apt  to  overlook  the  IFS 
of  God.  They  make  of  what  we  call  promises 
not  promises  at  all,  but  covenants.    A  covenant  is 


Page  16  THE   MESSAGE   OF 

an  agreement  between  two  or  more  people,  but  it 
always  implies  an  IF.  Effective  prayer  hangs  on 
an  IF — "  If  ye  abide  in  me  and  my  words  abide 
in  you,  ask  whatsoever  ye  will,  and  it  shall  be 
done  unto  you."  Get  a  concordance  and  look  up 
the  IFS  of  the  Bible.  Do  your  prayers  rise  no 
higher  than  your  lips  and  bring  no  answer  ?  Do 
not  blame  God  for  that.  Look  within  and  see 
whether  you  have  kept  your  side  of  the  cove- 
nant. 

What  is  it  to  abide  in  Christ?  He  himself 
gives  the  answer.  He  says  it  is  like  the  vine  and 
the  branches  of  the  vine.  The  branches  are  the 
blossomers,  the  fruit-bearers;  they  produce  the 
odorous  flowers  which  send  out  perfume  on  all 
the  air  and  proclaim  that  the  vine  is  near.  The 
vine  is  the  deep-rooted  wood  that  goes  down  and 
gathers  nourishment  for  the  branches.  Without 
the  vine  the  branches  could  have  no  enduring  life. 
As  veins  and  arteries  in  the  human  body  carry 
life-blood  to  all  its  tissues,  so  does  the  vine  act  for 
the  branches.  They  abide  in  it,  live  by  it,  draw 
nourishment  from  it,  wait  upon  its  laws.  The 
simple  secret  of  the  flowering,  fruiting,  odorous 
branches  is  absolute  contact  with  their  source  of 
supply — the  vine. 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  17 

Is  it  easy  to  abide  in  Christ,  so  to  become  one 
with  him  as  to  achieve  power  through  prayer? 
It  grows  easy  from  the  doing  of  it.  Nothing  that 
is  really  valuable  is  easy.  Some  think  that  a  large 
inheritance  of  money  is  a  blessing  of  great  value, 
but  oftener  than  not  it  is  a  curse.  Even  if  it  does 
not  prove  a  curse,  the  legatee  soon  learns  that 
its  possession  involves  much  care  and  planning 
and  time.  Education  is  not  easy,  though  it  is 
very  valuable.  Social  prestige  is  not  easy.  It 
calls  for  labor  and  heartburnings  and  misunder- 
standings and  sorrow.  Sometimes  great  blessings 
seem  to  come  into  a  man's  life  suddenly,  but  re- 
search would  reveal  the  fact  that  there  has  pre- 
ceded them  some  kind  of  special  training  or  prepa- 
ration. A  Lincoln  or  a  Robert  Bums  may  come 
suddenly  upon  the  stage,  out  of  commonplace  ca- 
reers, but  there  have  always  been  rich  possibili- 
ties hidden  behind  a  daily  routine  of  work.  Great 
moments  do  not  suddenly  put  great  qualities  into 
the  soul  of  men :  they  simply  bring  to  the  front 
what  was  already  there. 

So  if  you  wish  to  abide  in  Christ,  the  time  to 
begin  is  right  now.  As  in  every  other  law  of  life, 
the  sooner  one  begins  the  sooner  one  attains  full 
development,  for  the  beginning  of  the  Christ  life 


Page  18  THE   MESSAGE   OF 

enfolds  that  strange,  progressive,  persistent  thing 
which  man  calls  life.  If  you  wait  until  tomorrow 
you  have  lost  one  day  and  have  the  tragedy  of 
one  day  of  arrested  development.  One  who  ex- 
pects the  attainment  of  holiness  must  yield  pa- 
tiently to  the  discipline  of  training.  To  secure 
the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  the  branches  must  feel  the 
keen  knife  of  the  pruner. 

^t^m  to  JPrag 

"  After  this  manner  therefore  pray  ye!' 

The  Lord's  Prayer  is  a  part  of  a  wonderful  in- 
struction given  by  Jesus  Christ  in  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount.  Earlier,  he  had  been  calling  atten- 
tion to  the  difference  between  outward  formalism 
and  inward  piety.  In  the  very  heart  of  his  dis- 
course he  paused  a  moment  to  emphasize  that  the 
attitude  of  the  heart  in  the  secret  of  one's  closet  is 
the  true  measure  of  a  man's  piety. 

"After  this  manner  "—after  some  definite, 
well-considered  manner,  not  glibly  nor  with  dis- 
tractions. What  is  the  manner  prescribed? 
"  Enter  into  thy  closet,  shut  thy  door,  pray  to  thy 
Father  in  secret."     So  slight  a  thing  as  going 


THE   LORD'S    PRAYER  Page  19 

quietly  into  a  secret  place  and  gently  shutting  the 
door  impresses  the  soul  with  an  inner  atmosphere 
of  force  and  peace.  The  praying  man  is  sure, 
whatever  his  rank,  to  be  a  purposeful  man. 

Are  these  the  only  conditions  ?  No.  There  is 
another  thing  to  be  done  before  the  prayer  be- 
gins :  "  If  thou  bringest  thy  gift  to  the  altar,  and 
there  rememberest  that  thy  brother  hath  aught 
against  thee,  leave  there  thy  gift,  go  thy  way,  be 
reconciled  to  thy  brother,  then  come  and  offer 
thy  gift."  So  are  we  taught  that  a  right  spirit 
toward  our  brother  is  the  first  requisite  for  ac- 
ceptable prayer. 

In  no  other  part  of  the  Bible  is  there  a  group  of 
verses  which  so  tersely  expresses  what  might  be 
called  the  Saviour's  theology  as  does  the  simple 
phrasing  of  the  Lord's  Prayef.  Proof  of  its  di- 
vine origin  may  be  discovered  in  the  pregnant 
compactness  of  its  seven  petitions.  Only  seven 
petitions  for  all  the  necessities  and  wants  of  men ! 
Why,  we  should  think  it  would  demand  an  im- 
mense volume !  Yet  these  seven  petitions  comprise 
"  the  shortest,  richest,  fullest  cry  of  the  human 
heart,"  and  they  enfold  the  living  norm  of  all 
spiritual  activity.  Given  a  God,  and  demand  of 
him  a  prayer  to  cover  the  whole  circuit  of  human 


Page20  THE    MESSAGE    OF 

needs,  and  the  Lord's  Prayer  will  be  found  to  meet 
every  requirement.  It  is  ''  so  brief  that  it  does 
not  weary  the  weakest,  so  simple  that  a  child  may 
say  it  and  understand  it,  so  full  and  rich  that  the 
wisest  scholar  finds  it  to  transcend  his  mental 
growth."  It  is  quickly  memorized,  slowly 
fathomed.  It  may  be  used  by  Christian,  Jew, 
Mohammedan,  Protestant,  or  Catholic.  It  is 
absolutely  outside  the  pale  of  sect. 

It  is  strange  but  true  that  this  prayer  is  the 
only  shadow  of  a  ritual  ever  suggested  by  Jesus 
Christ.  Some  time  ago  the  following  paragraph 
went  the  rounds  of  the  public  press : 

There  was  once  a  minister  of  the  gospel 

Who  never  built  a  church ; 

Who  never  preached  in  one; 

Who  never  founded  a  new  sect; 

Who  never  belonged  to  any  sect; 

Who  was  known  to  have  publicly  drunk  wine  with 

sinners ; 
Who  never  received  a  salary; 
Who  never  asked  for  one ; 

Who  never  used  a  prayer-book  or  hymn-book; 
Who   never   hired   great    musicians   or    singers    to 

draw  people  to  hear  the  word; 
Who  never  went  through  a  course  of  theological  study ; 
Who  never  was  ordained ; 
Who  never  was  even  converted ; 
Whose  abiding-places  were  always  among  the  poor ; 


THE    LORD'S    PRAYER  Page  21 

Who  made  no  distinction  between  sinful  men  and  sin- 
ful women. 
Do  you  know  who  this  strange  preacher  was  ? 

Of  him  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  wrote : 

Jesus  Christ  did  not  even  counsel  his  disciples  to  unite 
in  any  form  of  public  worship.  Once  his  disciples  asked 
him  to  teach  them  how  to  pray.  "  Ask  your  heavenly 
Father,"  he  replied,  "  for  the  things  you  want,  precisely  as 
your  children  ask  you.  Are  you  hungry?  Ask  him  for 
bread.  Are  you  perplexed?  Ask  him  for  guidance.  Are 
your  temptations  too  strong?  Ask  him  to  help  you  to 
overcome  them."  Jesus  Christ  did  not  prescribe  his 
prayer  as  a  form.  He  used  it  as  an  illustration.  When 
he  came  to  earth,  the  prevailing  feeling  toward  God, 
or  the  gods,  was  one  of  fear.  He  brought  into  the 
world  a  new  interpretation  of  God.  Christianity  is 
not  the  same  as  churchianity.  It  is  a  new  life.  It  is 
w^anting  in  some  who  call  themselves  Christians.  It 
is  radiant  in  some  who  have  never  called  themselves 
Christians. 


TPE  construction  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  is 
quite  analogous  to  the  construction  of  the 
Ten  Commandments.  The  first  group  of 
the  Commandments  teaches  us  our  attitude  to- 
ward God,  thus : 

I.  Thou  shalt  have  no  other  God. 
II.  Thou  shalt  not  make  any  Image  for  worship. 

III.  Thou  shalt  not  take  the  name  of  God  in  vain. 

IV.  Remember  the  Sabbath  day  to  keep  it  holy. 

The  next  commandment,  the  Fifth,  seems  to  be 
a  break  in  the  continuity.  It  gives  us  a  little 
shock,  as  of  something  out  of  place;  but  it  is 
really  a  gradual  and  happy  gradation  from  the 
thought  of  God  to  the  thought  of  man.  It  is 
the  one  commandment  to  which  the  lawgiver 
added  a  blessing  for  its  observance.  It  reads, 
''  Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother,  that  thy  days 
may  be  long  upon  the  land." 

Page  22 


THE   LORD'S    PRAYER  Page  23 

The  second  group  of  the  Commandments  out- 
lines yery  laconically  and  very  rigidly  what  must 
be  our  conduct  toward  our  fellow  man.  Here  is 
the  second  group: 

VI.  Thou  Shalt  not  kill. 
VII.  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery. 
VIII.  Thou  shalt  not  steal. 
IX.  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness  against  thy 
neighbor. 
X.  Thou    shalt   not  covet   thy   neighbor's   posses- 
sions. 

These  five  form  a  crescendo,  rising  from  the 
crude  and  savage  act  of  killing  to  the  subtle  and 
sly  sin  of  taking  away  a  neighbor's  character  or 
of  coveting  his  wife. 

The  Ten  Commandments  are  all  positive 
"Thou  shalts"  and  "Thou  shalt  nots."  No 
reasons  why  are  given.  It  is  like  talking  to  chil- 
dren of  the  nursery.  The  orders  are  guide-posts, 
marking  the  way  for  safe  progress,  or  warning 
that  there  is  danger  ahead.  The  Lord's  Prayer 
did  not  abrogate  the  Commandments.  It  simply 
amplified  them  and  made  them  spiritual. 

The  prayer,  like  the  Commandments,  is  divided 
into  groups.  The  first  three  emphasize  our  duty 
toward  God ;  the  last  three,  our  duty  toward  our 


Page24  THE   MESSAGE   OF 

fellow  men.  They  are  broken  in  the  center  by  a 
very  human  petition — "  Give  us  this  day  our  daily 
bread."  It  is  a  petition  very  dear  to  humanity, 
because  it  tenderly  recognizes  our  daily  needs  and 
God's  daily  providing  care  for  them.  The  first 
group  of  the  prayer  runs  thus : 

I.  Hallowed  be  thy  name. 
II.  Thy  kingdom  come, 
III.  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven. 

The  second  group  of  petitions  recalls  our  tres- 
passes, our  temptations,  our  perils,  and  begs  for 
deliverance  from  them.  As  in  the  Command- 
ments the  teacher  pauses  to  comment  on  a  certain 
portion,  so  in  the  prayer,  he  stops  to  say,  "  For 
if  ye  forgive  not  men  their  trespasses,  neither  will 
your  Father  forgive  you  your  trespasses.'* 

It  is  suggestive  that  our  Lord  did  not  say  "  IF 
ye  pray"  but  "WHEN  ye  pray."  We  thus 
learn  that  the  Creator  expects  prayer  from  his 
creature.  He  orders  it,  so  do  not  doubt  its  effi- 
cacy. It  has  lately  been  proved  that  man  can  take 
the  laws  of  nature  and  compel  them  to  do  at  his 
bidding  things  which  a  few  decades  before  would 
have  been  declared  impossible.  Flying  through 
the  air  and  carrying  great  weights  in  aeroplanes 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  25 

is  an  illustration.  If  man  can  do  this,  do  you 
think  God  is  less  capable  to  combine  or  recon- 
struct his  own  laws  in  some  new  emergency? 
**  Believe  me,"  says  Tennyson, 

More  things  are  wrought  by  prayer 
Than  this  world  dreams  of. 

And  Jonn  Wallace  says, 

Prayer  moves  the  Hand  which  moves  the  world. 

We  do  not  know  how  God  may  be,  at  our  re- 
quest and  while  we  pray,  directing  the  forces  of 
nature  to  work  together  for  what  man  might  call 
a  miracle. 

Some  events  are  contingent  on  prayer.  No 
more  tragic  sentence  appears  in  the  Bible  than 
Christ's  cry  over  Jerusalem,  ''  How  oft  would  I. 
.  .  and  ye  would  not."  We  have  in  Matthew  this 
statement,  "  He  could  do  no  mighty  works  there 
because  of  their  unbelief."  Opportunity,  master 
of  human  destinies,  had  to  pass  them  by,  although 
Jesus  Christ,  Master  of  heavenly  forces,  was 
waiting  to  bless  them.  I  sometimes  think  the  old 
adage,  "  Man  proposes:  God  disposes,"  should  be 
turned  around  and  should  read,  ''  God  proposes, 
man  disposes." 


Page  26  THE   MESSAGE   OF 

Has  some  unbelief  detained  you  from  an  an- 
swer to  prayer?  Some  lack  of  cooperation  kept 
from  you  your  waiting  blessing  ? 


This  pregnant  prayer  opens  with  the  yearning 
human  cry  "  Our  Father!  "  This  marks  the  new 
order,  the  New  Testament,  the  vivid  change  from 
law  to  love.  Dare  we  use  these  words  and  not 
note  their  deep  meaning  ? 

OUR — not  my.  I  am  no  privileged  child  who 
may  think  of  myself  as  especially  God's,  free  to 
scorn  any  whom  I  may  judge  to  be  my  inferiors. 
Neither  am  I  cut  off  from  other  children  of  God 
who  seem  so  far  above  my  rank  that  I  dare  not 
think  of  their  kinship  except  when  I  am  at  the 
altar.  Nor  may  I  forget  my  relationship  to  those 
who  are  overburdened,  overtempted,  borne  down 
with  sorrows  and  poverty ;  .nor  my  oneness  wnth 
that  army  of  the  sinned-against  who  slip  from 
duty  through  despair.  "  Our  "  means  the  inclu- 
sion of  all  these — children  of  the  one  compassion- 
ate, yearning  Father.  To  speak  the  word 
"  OUR  "  from  the  deeps  of  the  heart  would  start 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  27 

within  us  a  revolution  that  could  not  stop  short 
of  a  changed  life.  "  OUR "  is  a  dynamic  to 
shatter  the  whole  present  social  fabric.  It  de- 
fends the  soul  against  haughtiness  and  vanity. 
The  thought  of  the  solidarity  of  the  human  race 
began  with  the  institution  of  the  Passover.  No 
one  was  permitted  to  celebrate  it  alone.  It  sym- 
bolized the  fellowship  of  God's  people  in  joy  and 
sorrow. 

The  other  word  of  the  wonderful  invocation  is 
FATHER.  It  is  a  term  given  in  concession  to 
our  limited  comprehension,  for  there  is  no  earthly 
title  which  can  picture  forth  God's  relation  to 
man.  It  is  one  of  the  many  titles  he  uses  to  adapt 
to  our  limited  conception  God's  nearness  to  man. 
We  are  left  to  guess  what  it  implies  by  visioning 
the  human  relation  of  father  and  child.  Even 
then  there  are  many  to  whom  this  tender  name 
brings  no  illumination. 

This  was  once  illustrated  to  me  in  my  Sunday 
School  class  of  poor  girls.  We  had  been  studying 
the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  the  difference  between  the 
conceptions  brought  to  two  of  the  girls  by  the 
name  "  Father  "  was  startling.  One  lived  in  the 
region  of  the  famous  "  Cabbage-patch."  Poverty, 
hunger,  and  dirt  abode  under  her  father's  roof. 


Page28  THE   MESSAGE   OF 

Sometimes  the  mother  was  sober ;  the  father,  al- 
most never.  After  an  absence,  I  went  to  look 
the  girl  up.  While  we  talked  the  father  came 
reeling  home,  and  the  first  sight  of  him  sent  every 
child  scurrying  to  a  place  of  safety.  I  thought  it 
no  wonder  I  had  signally  failed  to  illustrate  to 
that  daughter  a  sense  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God. 

Soon  after,  my  visits  took  me  to  the  home  of 
another  of  my  girls.  Back,  back,  back,  through 
a  blind  alley  to  the  very  end  of  a  swarming  tene- 
ment-house I  was  directed.  I  found  the  mother 
at  the  wash-tub.  While  I  was  there  a  ragged 
little  messenger  from  another  part  of  the  tene- 
ment came  to  ask  if  her  mother  might  have  the 
sudsy  water  when  my  hostess  was  through  wash- 
ing. She  could  not,  because  my  hostess  had 
planned  to  use  it  to  wash  up  her  ''  other  room  " 
with.  Again  the  cry,  "  Father  is  coming," 
sounded,  but  every  chubby  pair  of  half -frozen 
legs  ran  to  meet  him.  He  was  sooty  and  greasy 
with  the  black  grime  of  his  calling,  but  he  lifted 
the  tots  in  his  arms  and  put  his  big  hand  tenderly 
over  the  shoulder  of  his  wife,  as  he  spoke  to  me 
shyly  of  his  "  bairnies  "  and  the  Sunday  School. 
His  scanty  wage  provided  for  eight  souls,  but 
what  he  lacked  in  lucre  he  made  up  in  love.     I 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  29 


felt  I  could  speak  intelligibly  to  his  daughter  of 
the  Fatherhood  of  God. 

To  me,  back  of  the  word  "  Father "  is  the 
greater  word  ''Creator."     Why  do  I  say  this? 
Because  there  come  times,  black  and  bitter,  when, 
in  some  human  extremity,  man,  passing  by  the 
Fatherhood  of  God,  cries  out,  as  Job  did,  to  the 
Creator — cries  imperiously,  as  a  created  thing,  to 
the  justice  of  his  Creator  and  his  responsibility 
for  the  man's  existence.  The  broken-hearted  crea- 
ture asserts  in  orderly  dignity  his  right  to  God's 
care  and  providing.     Such  days  are  dark  days, 
and  they  come  perhaps  only  to  great  souls  in  great 
emergencies;  but  they  do  come.     Out  of  a  sense 
of  despairing  helplessness  and  of  the  inexorable- 
ness  of  his  fate,  the  man  demands  to  plead  his 
cause  before  him  whose  creation  he  is.     In  the 
lonely  bewilderment  of  the  cross,  in  the  bitterness 
of  his  human  agony,  our  Saviour's  cry  was  not, 
''  My  Father,  my  Father,"  but  it  was,  "  Eloi,  Eloi, 
why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?  "    Eloi  is  the  term 
employed  in  Genesis  for  Creator. 

*'  Father !  "  It  is  a  wonderful  word.  The  little 
boy  is  not  capable  of  comprehending  his  father — 
not  able  to  grasp  his  larger  views  for  his  growth 
and  education,  nor  to  await  patiently  their  un- 


PageSO  THE   MESSAGE   OF 

foldings.  Even  the  growing  boy  is  apt  to  see  in 
his  father  an  autocrat,  a  critic,  or  judge.  Too 
often  he  is  to  the  child's  thought  a  foreigner. 
He  cannot  fathom  the  father's  deep  sympathy  or 
his  longing  for  his  son's  highest  all-round  de- 
velopment. He  cannot  understand  that  develop- 
ment comes  through  discipline,  or  realize  that 
fatherhood  is  often  maintained  at  immense  cost 
to  the  father  heart. 

But  one  day  the  boy  becomes  the  man.  He  has 
reached  manhood  through  many  experiences,  and 
he  now  judges  by  standards  other  than  those  of 
his  childhood.  The  tie  between  child  and  father 
comes  to  his  vision  in  an  aspect  new  and  very 
wonderful.  What  the  boy  had  written  down  as 
domination,  the  man  clarifies  and  adores.  He 
becomes  reverent  and  filial,  and  his  heart  over- 
flows with  humility  and  gratitude.  The  old 
prayer  of  his  boyhood  is  illuminated  and  takes 
on  new  meaning  in  the  term  "  Father." 

Much  that  at  first,  in  deed  and  word, 
Was  simply  and  sufficiently  expressed 
Had  grown  (or  else  my  soul  had  grown  to  match, 
Fed  through  such  years,  familiar  with  such  light) 
To  new  significance  and  fresh  result ; 
What  first  was  guessed  as  points  I  now  know  as  stars. 

— Robert  Browning. 


THE   LORD  S   PRAYER  Page  31 

And  what  of  God,  great,  eternal,  unfathom- 
able? Do  you  believe  he  pauses  in  his  large  de- 
signs and  movements  to  care  for  the  tiny  bits  of 
his  creation?  Why,  the  earth  is  one  of  the 
smallest  of  the  planets,  and  possibly  man  ranks 
very  low  in  the  Creator's  intelligences.  Is  it 
likely  that  the  Creator  gives  thought  to  him  ? 

In  reply,  let  us  contemplate  the  exquisite  bal- 
ancings of  creation — the  wonderful  adaptation 
of  each  creature  to  its  environment,  the  careful 
provision  made  and  maintained  against  the  needs 
and  for  the  emergencies  of  the  tiniest  insect  that 
"  hums  and  sings  in  the  scum  and  mud  of  things." 
Why,  the  most  superficial  study  of  God  in  nature 
must  convince  us  that  God's  providential  over- 
sight of  his  creation  is  all-pervasive  and  actively 
directing.  He  who  hears  the  weakest  hum  in  the 
great  diapason  of  nature  may  be  trusted  to  listen 
to  the  cry  of  a  human  soul  and  to  bring  it  relief 
out  of  his  vast  storehouses. 

Among  the  many  adaptations  of  creation  we 
must  surely  count  the  adaptation  of  spirit  to 
spirit  in  prayer.  No  doubt  there  has  always  been 
provision  made  for  the  effect  of  prayer  upon  the 
visible  universe.  The  occult  influence  of  spirit 
upon  spirit  is  one  of  the  commonest  phenomena 


Page32  THE   MESSAGE   OF 

of  human  experience.  It  exists  in  every  life  and 
manifests  itself  in  various  ways.  Is  it  then  un- 
believable that  the  great  Master  Spirit  comes  close 
to  our  spirit — so  near,  and  with  guiding  so  clear, 
that  nothing  physical  can  compare  with  it  ?  This 
direct,  vital,  personal  contact  of  the  Divine  Spirit 
with  man's  human  spirit  is  our  warrant  for  daily 
prayer. 

Speak  to  Him,  thou,   for  He  hears,  and  spirit  with 

spirit  can  meet — 
Closer  is  He  than  breathing  and  nearer  than  hands 

and  feet. 


0  Art  In  IB^uxtm 


To  the  tender  and  meaningful  words  "  Our 
Father,"  the  Lord  added  another  phrase  which  is 
pregnant.  Note  the  tense  of  the  verb — "  art  " — 
not  a  Father  that  once  was;  not  a  Father  yet  to 
be  manifested;  but  a  Father  who  now  is,  a  living, 
abiding,  palpitant  presence. 

"  Who  art  in  heaven."  How  supporting  to 
thought  is  a  sense  of  locality.  We  are  so  glad 
to  have  this  Father  localized  and  made  definite  to 
our  feeble  mortal  conception.  Without  some  visi- 
ble emblem  for  the  mind  to  dwell  upon  and  so 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  33 

make  manifest  the  spiritual  conception,  human 
understanding  would  be  bewildered  in  the 
thought  of  God. 

We  must  pause  a  moment  here  to  admire  the 
skill  of  Jehovah  in  the  very  difficult  undertaking 
of  revealing  God's  embodiment  in  a  definite  home, 
without  so  materializing  that  home  as  to  degrade 
our  spiritual  aspiration  for  it. 

"  In  heaven."  We  never  quite  get  away  from 
our  childish  ideas  of  the  abiding-place  of  God. 
Our  Lord  said  nothing  of  what  it  is  or  where  it 
is,  or  what  it  looks  like.  John  tried  to  describe  it 
to  us,  and  failed  utterly.  Paul  endeavored  to  lift 
us  up  to  his  radiant  vision  of  it,  but  was  obliged 
to  use  only  glittering  generalities  in  the  noble 
words,  "  Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  neither 
have  entered  into  the  heart  of  man,  the  things 
which  God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  love 
him." 

But  the  boundless  extent  of  blue  which  covers 
the  earth,  the  pure  light  with  which  it  is  filled  by 
day  and  the  golden  magnificence  which  be- 
sprinkles it  by  night,  the  quietness  and  repose  of 
the  heavens,  their  orderliness  and  beauty,  their 
harmony  and  sense  of  infinity — these  fill  man's 
earliest   conscious   thought   with   reverence   and 


Page34  THE   MESSAGE    OF 

peace,  and  seem  fit  symbols  of  God's  majesty  and 
power,  so  that  even  the  little  ones  look  up  into  the 
blue  dome  and  believe  it  is  God's  house;  and  we 
never  fully  get  away  from  that.  This  innate 
sense  of  some  definite  place  where  abide  the  better 
things  which  the  soul  conceives  but  finds  nowhere 
on  earth — this  we  call  heaven. 

Where  is  heaven?  Where  is  the  soul  in  the 
human  body  ?  Can  you  locate  it  ?  If  you  can  not, 
do  you  deny  that  it  exists  ?  It  is  told  in  Scripture 
that  "  the  heavens  cannot  contain  God,  yet  he  is 
not  very  far  from  any  one  of  us."  In  heaven — in 
the  seat  of  dominion.  In  the  center  of  power.  In 
the  laboratory  of  creative  force.  What  is  not 
possible  in  such  a  place  ? 

"  Our  Father,  who  art  in  heaven."  This  phras- 
ing is  placed  in  the  forefront  of  the  Lord's  Prayer 
to  impress  upon  us  that  God  is  not  to  be  sought 
in  any  material  mood  of  the  soul ;  but  that  a  man 
must  disrobe  himself  of  everything  earthly,  as 
did  the  high  priest  of  old,  and  garment  himself 
with  holy  garments  if  he  would  enter  that  holy  of 
holies — prayer. 

Such  souls  vanish  the  earth, 

But  they  leave  behind 

A  voice  that  wakes  the  ages. 


THE   LORD'S    PRAYER  Page  35 


"  Hallowed  be  Thy  name  "  is  called  the  first 
petition  of  the  Lord's  Prayer.  But  is  it  a  peti- 
tion ?  May  it  not  be  that  it  is  simply  an  affirma- 
tion at  the  threshold  of  prayer,  to  guard  us  against 
any  unseemly  familiarity  with  God  ?  May  it  not 
be  intended  to  warn  men  to  put  the  shoes  from 
off  their  feet,  for  the  place  whereinto  they  have 
come  is  holy  ground.  First  recognize  the  holiness 
of  the  Presence,  and  then  seek  that  this  holiness 
be  felt  by  the  one  who  prays.  It  guards  against 
the  tendency  to  regard  prayer  as  a  daily  rite,  to  be 
gotten  over  quickly  and  done  with.  Prayer  is 
fellowship  with  God.  It  is  being  strengthened 
for  the  day  by  daily  communion,  as  the  body  is 
strengthened  by  daily  food. 

The  verb  to  hallow  means  to  make  holy,  to  set 
apart,  to  separate.  This  Name  is  to  be  set  apart 
in  the  heart  as  a  holy  thing,  an  inspiration,  a 
standard.  Let  not  your  daily  prayer  be  a  begging 
plaint  for  material  good,  as  too  often  it  is;  but 
here,  in  the  closet,  in  the  quiet  sanctuary  hour, 
learn  the  mastery  of  life  and  life's  vexing  details 
through  contemplating  things  of  the  spirit.    Only 


Page  36  THE    MESSAGE    OF 

SO  can  you  refresh  your  soul  and  fit  it  for  its 
daily  encounters. 

In  springing  out  of  bed  with  this  thought  of 
glorifying  God,  you  but  follow  all  the  works  of 
creation. 

Th'  unwearied  sun,  from  day  to  day, 
Does  his  Creator's  power  display, 
And  publishes,  to  every  land, 
The  work  of  an  Almighty  hand. 

Soon  as  the  evening  shades  prevail, 
The  moon  takes  up  the  wondrous  tale ; 
And  nightly,  to  the  list'ning  earth. 
Repeats  the  story  of  her  birth: — 

Whilst  all  the  stars  that  round  her  burn, 
And  all  the  planets  in  their  turn. 
Confirm  the  tidings,  as  they  roll. 
And  spread  the  truth  from  pole  to  pole. 


Forever  singing,  as  they  shine, — 
"  The  hand  that  made  us  is  divine." 

"  Hallowed  be  Thy  name."  Is  this  truly  the 
first  petition  of  thy  morning  prayer  ?  The  earliest 
glad,  upspringing  desire  of  thy  heart  ?  If  so,  thou 
hast  entered  the  blessed  life  of  consecration,  the 
Spirit-filled  life,  where  is  always  quiet  and  peace 
and  there  are  no  perplexities  of  the  day.  It  is  the 
friendly  dugout  in  the  tumultuous  battle-field. 


THE   LORD'S    PRAYER  Page  37 


"  Thy  kingdom  come  "  is  the  next  petition  of 
this  model  set  us  by  our  Lord  for  prayer. 

In  nothing  did  Jesus  Christ  labor  more  untir- 
ingly than  in  effort  to  place  before  human  thought 
right  conceptions  of  God's  kingdom.  He  la- 
bored to  present  the  idea  at  every  angle.  The 
kingdom  was  like  mustard-seed  for  littleness  in 
its  beginnings;  therefore  no  one  need  be  dis- 
couraged if  in  his  own  heart  the  beginning  seemed 
to  be  small.  It  was  like  leaven  in  its  strange 
power  to  break  down  surrounding  foreign  ele- 
ments; therefore  no  one  need  be  anxious  as  to  the 
results  of  its  coming — even  if  results  seemed  slow 
in  appearing.  It  was  like  hidden  treasure,  so  un- 
expectedly might  one  come  upon  it.  It  was  like 
a  pearl  of  great  price,  so  wise  would  it  be  for  a 
man  to  resign  everything  he  held  dear  in  order  to 
acquire  possession  of  it.  This  kingdom  is  not  a 
geographical  area  or  a  political  one.  It  is  not  in 
the  Jewish  nation  or  in  any  empire.  It  has  no 
visible  ruler,  but  is  ever  pervaded  by  a  univer- 
sal omniscient  King. 

Our  Lord  laid  great  stress  upon  man's  making 


Page38  THE   Mn^SSAGE   OF 

this  kingdom  the  highest  pursuit  of  his  existence. 
All  the  other  petitions  of  the  prayer  are  inter- 
locked in  its  call.  The  first  three  urge  its  imme- 
diate appearance:  the  last  three  beg  that  all 
human  hindrances — especially  those  within  our- 
selves— be  removed,  as  cobblestones,  from  the 
path  of  its  coming.  In  his  insistence  upon  the 
desirability  of  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  upon  earth,  our  Lord  cried :  "  Seek  ye 
first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness; 
and  all  other  things  shall  be  added  unto  you"  It 
is  a  promise.  It  is  a  reward.  Seek  first  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  and  its  type  of  righteousness,  and 
all  anxiety  about  other  things — material  things, 
spiritual  things,  financial  things — may  cease. 

"  Thy  kingdom  come !  "  When  this  prayer  of 
our  Lord  was  put  forward,  God's  kingdom  on 
earth  was  hopelessly  small.  A  few  simple  folk, 
mostly  fisherf oik ;  a  few  Israelites  who  were  wait- 
ing for  the  consolation  of  Israel;  a  few  isolated 
and  frightened  men  and  women  meeting  daily  in 
an  upper  chamber  to  keep  in  remembrance  the 
expected  kingdom — only  half  realizing  what  it 
meant.  Who  could  possibly  predict  that  by 
reason  of  the  constant  petitions  of  that  simple 
prayer,  handed  down  from  father  to  son  through 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  39 


the  ages,  the  little  germ  of  a  kingdom  then  set 
up  would  have  become  today,  without  the  employ- 
ment of  either  arms  or  statecraft,  a  great  nation, 
with  followers  within  every  nation  of  the  earth ; 
that  kings  and  emperors  would  do  it  reverence; 
that  leaders  of  men  would  be  its  leaders ;  that  its 
tenets  would  inflame  the  hearts  of  millions  of  men 
to  go  out  and  do  battle,  that  this  kingdom  of 
heaven  should  not  have  its  spiritual  laws  either 
betrayed  or  outraged? 

Thy  kingdom  come!  Did  you  expect  it  to  come 
with  no  cost?  Has  not  every  step  of  its  advance 
been  marked  with  broken  bodies  and  blood  poured 
out,  and  the  crusaders'  cross.  And  it  may  come 
to  you  with  cost.  Be  of  good  courage.  He  has 
passed  this  way  before  you.  Remember  his 
words,  "What  I  do  thou  knowest  not  now,  but 
thou  shalt  know  hereafter." 


''  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth,  as  it  is  done  in 
heaven."  This  is  the  third  petition.  As  con- 
strued by  many,  it  is  really  only  a  part  of  the  pre- 
ceding petition,  they  are  one.     When  the  third 


Pagc40  THE   MESSAGE   OF 


petition  is  deeply  felt  and  sincerely  prayed,  it  ful- 
fils the  ideal  of  all  prayer.  When  a  man  can  truly 
cry,  "Thy  will,  O  God,  be  done,  in  me,  and  by 
me,  and  through  me,  wherever  it  leads  and  what- 
ever it  costs,"  he  has  made  full  consecration  of 
himself  and  his  possessions  and  his  powers  to 
God.  Do  you  dare  to  pray  it?  It  may  call  for 
isolation,  loss,  cross,  pain,  poverty,  death.  Pray 
it,  if  you  can.  It  is  the  greatest  of  all  prayers; 
but  it  cuts  a  clean  swath  through  selfishness,  un- 
truth, gossip,  human  passions  of  all  degrees. 

At  the  base  of  prayer  is  a  sense  of  a  personal 
relation  with  God.  The  one  who  prays  wishes  to 
do  and  to  have  things  which  he  desires.  He 
probably  begins  by  asking  for  very  cheap  things — 
power  and  wealth  and  goods  of  all  kinds — ^the 
things  that  clog  the  spirit  and  clutter  the  body.  If 
he  is  a  child  of  God,  some  time  this  changes.  He 
has  observed  children  who  receive  from  earthly 
parents  everything  they  desire,  and  he  has  dis- 
covered that  this  is  usually  the  very  worst  thing 
possible  for  the  child.  He  concludes  that  his 
own  judgment  as  to  his  own  needs  may  be,  like 
the  child's,  not  wise.  He  knows  that  he  is  apt 
to  pray  to  be  exempted  from  everything  that 
would  bring  suffering  or  loss  to  him,  and  to  be 


THE   LORD'S    PRAYER  Page  41 

endowed  with  everything  that  could  make  him 
comfortable  and  happy.  If  a  larger  view  comes 
to  him,  it  teaches  him  that  these  would  be  the 
worst  things  possible  for  him.  The  unceasing 
building  up  of  character  is  not  provided  with 
stepping-stones  but  with  stumbling-blocks.  Fac- 
ing issues  began  in  Eden,  and  if  Eve  had  been 
loyal  to  her  highest,  the  world  would  have  had  a 
different  ending.  Innocence  is  not  righteousness. 
Righteousness  comes  from  temptation,  and  strug- 
gle, and  failure,  and — victory. 

It  may  well  be  that  our  heavenly  Father  knows 
that  we  need  the  discipline,  the  storms,  the  rough 
winds  which  fix  the  rootages  of  character  and 
firm  them  in  the  soil  for  deeper  growth  and  larger 
endurance.  He  may  know  that  sorrow  and  losses 
and  crosses  are  just  the  things  we  need ;  that  dear 
ties  should  be  severed;  that  want  should  stalk 
hand-in-hand  with  us  and  lead  us  to  Christ. 

Then  why  pray?  What  is  the  lesson  of  the 
third  petition?  It  is  that  God  will  not  let  our 
partial  knowledge,  our  human  cravings,  decide 
our  fate ;  that  he  will  not  heed  us  and  send  what 
would  eventuate  in  disaster  to  our  growth,  simply 
because  we  beg  for  it.  The  petition  confides  all 
to  God's  perfect  knowledge  and  accepts  in  simple 


Page  42  THE   MESSAGE   OF 

trust  whatever  his  larger  judgment  gives  as  a 
substitute  for  our  ignorant  asking.  This  double 
prayer  is  the  one  our  Lord  himself  used  in  his 
hour  of  agony  on  the  cross.  He  said :  ''  If  it  be 
possible,  let  this  cup  pass  from  me;  but  if  it  may 
not  pass  except  I  drink  it,  thy  will  be  done." 

"  As  it  is  done  in  heaven."  How  is  God's  will 
done  in  heaven?  Go  out  at  night  and  look  up  at 
the  vast  blue  cup-shaped  dome  that  covers  the 
earth,  and  ask  the  suns  and  systems  which  si- 
lently revolve  in  their  harmonious  orbits  how 
God's  will  is  done  in  heaven.  *'  There  is  no 
speech  nor  language,  where  their  voice  is  not 
heard."  They  will  answer  you  that  God's  will  is 
done  gladly,  quickly,  faithfully,  continuously. 

But  the  obedience  of  nature  is  the  blind  obedi- 
ence of  law.  The  Creator  chose  to  differentiate 
man  from  the  other  creatures  by  endowing  him 
with  an  imperial  power  of  choice.  God's  ideal 
best  includes  a  creature  with  a  free  will.  Love 
outranks  obedience.  The  joy  of  a  gift  is  the 
voluntariness  of  it.  A  man  shut  within  the  stone 
walls  of  a  penitentiary  cannot  commit  any  out- 
rageous sin  against  the  commonwealth,  but  no 
one  can  think  he  is  at  his  ideal  best.  His  virtues 
are  negative.    But  when  man  is  a  free  agent  his 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  43 

virtues  become  kingly.  He  is  master  of  his  own 
destiny.  The  lower  animals  have  no  volition  of 
their  own.  Their  lives  and  movements  are  modi- 
fied for  them  by  the  higher  intelligences  who  own 
them  and  may  change  their  environment.  But 
man  is  free  and  responsible.  He  may  even  put 
himself  out  of  harmony  with  the  laws  of  God. 
He  may  hinder  and  delay  the  coming  of  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  on  earth,  for  which  Jesus  prayed. 
If  God,  like  the  prison-keeper,  hindered  him  from 
the  possibility  of  wrong-doing,  he  would  be  no 
better  than  a  brute,  and  conformity  to  God's  will 
would  have  no  value  in  God's  sight. 

What  would  happen  if  every  human  should 
really  desire  to  have  God's  will  a  constituent  part 
of  his  daily  life  and  walk?  The  whole  structure 
of  modern  society  would  be  changed.  Oppres- 
sion would  cease;  despair  would  rise  from  its 
ashes  and  put  on  the  beautiful  garments ;  economy 
and  efficiency  would  be  acts,  not  words ;  no  stand- 
ing armies ;  no  peace  councils ;  no  glut  of  riches  in 
one  place  and  starving  children  in  another;  no 
labor  troubles;  no  white  slavery;  a  whole  series 
of  professions  would  cease  to  be — police  courts, 
prisons,  etc.  The  Christianity  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  would  be  man's  working  principle. 


Page44  THE   MESSAGE    OF 

This  is  yet  to  come,  and  it  will  come,  through  the 
dynamic  force  of  the  Lord's  Prayer.  "  Pray, 
believing  that  ye  shall  receive,  and  it  shall  be  done 
for  you/' 

"  Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread  "  is  the 
fourth  petition  of  this  wonderful  prayer.  Most 
persons  think  of  it  as  the  first  and  most  important. 
All  that  went  before,  we  are  apt  to  think,  belongs 
to  the  mysteries  of  the  spirit  and  does  not  touch 
our  vital,  bodily  needs.  I  think  that  sometimes 
we  are  willing  to  run  glibly  through  the  first 
three — without  trying  to  fathom  their  meaning 
or  God's  purpose  in  commanding  them — hoping 
thereby  to  bargain  with  the  Lord  for  a  prompt 
answer  to  the  next  four — daily  bread,  forgive- 
ness for  favorite  sins,  freedom  from  temptation, 
deliverance  from  evil.  We  slyly  ask  ourselves, 
Why  should  I  be  told  to  honor  God's  name, 
pray  for  his  kingdom  to  come  and  his  will  to  be 
done  on  earth,  when  my  great  cry,  my  imperative 
need  is  for  plenty  of  bread  and  the  things  the 
word  bread  stands  for?  So  we  mentally  invert 
the  petitions,  treating  lightly  and  unthoughtfully 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  45 

those  upon  which  our  Lord  laid  greatest  stress, 
but  urging  strongly  the  four  which  deal  with  our 
fully  recognized  needs. 

But  the  first  three  petitions  are  fundamental, 
and  the  others  are  built  upon  them.  The  pressing 
need  of  humanity  is  not  bread  and  the  material 
things  implied  thereby,  but  it  is  a  great  vision  of 
the  invisible  things.  Food,  shelter,  clothing,  luxu- 
ries— these  are  the  incidents  of  life,  the  by-prod- 
ucts, the  impedimenta.  They  are  all  left  behind 
when  man  leaves  life. 

The  first  Avord  of  this  prayer  is  "  Father.'* 
Think  of  God  as  a  child  thinks  of  its  father,  who 
joyfully  and  abundantly  supplies  his  needs,  even 
before  the  child  is  conscious  of  having  any  need. 
We  mistake  the  nature  of  prayer  if  we  assume 
that  prayer  is  given  us  whereby  to  advise  Al- 
mighty God  of  his  functions,  or  to  remind  him 
that  he  is  not  doing  his  duty  by  us  in  our  time  of 
need  or  desire.  Do  not  presume  that  God  will  be 
able  to  govern  his  world  better  because  of  your 
prayer.  Commune  with  him.  Offer  up  your  prob- 
lems and  sorrows  to  his  tender  and  listening  ear; 
then  patiently  wait  for  him  to  speak  and  advise. 
This  precious  human  petition  is  our  warrant  for 
telling  our  Father  of  our  human  hunger,  and  for 


Page46  THE   MESSAGE   OF 

looking  to  him  for  comprehension  and  sympathy 
in  the  daily  burdens  which  bear  so  heavily. 

"  Your  Father  knoweth  that  you  have  need  of 
these  things  "  is  Christ's  tender  supplement  to  this 
petition.  "  Behold  the  birds  of  heaven,  ye  heirs 
of  heaven,"  writes  Martin  Luther.  "  God  feedeth 
them.  They  neither  sow  nor  reap.  The  House- 
holder of  the  Universe  hath  untold  stores  gar- 
nered for  all  that  lack  and  suffer  hunger."  Are 
ye  not  of  much  more  value  than  many  sparrows  ? 
Have  you  not  been  told  by  Jesus  Christ  himself 
that  the  very  hairs  of  your  head  are  numbered  ? 

Go  to  the  forest,  O  ye  of  little  faith,  and  front 
the  essential  facts  of  the  life  there.  Behold  with 
amazement  the  myriad  and  varied  messengers 
which  are  entrusted  with  food  and  shelter  and 
protection  for  all  God's  creatures,  both  the  most 
atomic  creatures  and  the  most  gigantic.  Let 
nature  be  a  schoolmaster  to  bring  you  to  faith  in 
your  Father's  abounding  provision  and  prevision. 
To  the  creatures  he  is  Creator :  for  you  he  adds 
the  compassionate  term  "  Father."  Has  that  no 
significance  to  you  ? 

Now  let  us  analyze  this  marvelous  petition, 
taking  each  word  separately  and  getting  from 
each  all  that  it  means  to  us. 


THE   LORD'S   PRAlTER  Page  47 

"  Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread."  Give,  It 
is  a  gift  then!  Why,  we  thought  we  had  earned 
it,  or  invented  it.  No.  Unless  the  Father  should 
regulate  the  sun  and  the  dew  and  the  hidden, 
microscopic  forces  at  work  in  nature,  man  could 
never  get  his  bread.  Unless  God  withheld  the 
storms  and  the  floods  and  the  belching  volcanoes, 
man  could  never  preserve  his  garnered  stores. 
Sometimes,  in  limited  areas,  these  fires  or  floods 
are  let  loose  for  a  season,  and  man  is  taught 
through  terror  what  he  has  not  learned  through 
love,  of  the  power  of  the  Almighty.  Then  let  us, 
in  making  our  prayer. 

Kiss  the  nethermost 
Hem  of  his  garment, 
Lowly  inclining 
In  infantine  awe. 

— Goethe. 

"  Give!  "  Is  it  a  gift?  Yes,  it  is.  Man  may 
take  the  products  of  the  earth,  combine,  mold,  and 
subject  them  to  his  will,  but  he  cannot  create  one 
atom  of  the  life-principle.  This  is  stored  in  the 
matrix  of  the  earth  and  climbs  to  the  light  in 
plants  and  flowers.  The  secret  of  genesis  is  with 
God  and  remains  with  God,  so  that  if  he  with- 
holds the  life-tides  no  man  can  have  his  daily 


Page  48  THE   MESSAGE   OF 

bread.  The  miracle  of  Elijah's  ravens  was  more 
unusual  but  not  greater. 

In  this  fourth  petition  we  learn  that  the  prayer 
for  bread  is  not  solely  intended  for  poverty- 
stricken  people ;  but  that  bread  and  the  conditions 
for  procuring  bread  are  as  truly  a  gift  to  the  rich 
as  to  the  poor,  to  Andrew  Carnegie  the  multi- 
millionaire, as  to  Andrew  Carnegie,  the  weaver's 
lad  emigrating  to  America  with  all  his  possessions 
strapped  to  his  back.  For  back  of  industry  and 
skill  are  the  sun  and  the  dew.  And  back  of  these 
is  God,  who  alone  crowns  industry  and  diligence 
with  success. 

Though  daily  bread  is  a  gift,  we  are  nowhere 
warranted  in  making  petition  a  substitute  for  in- 
telligence and  work.  We  must  cooperate  with  God 
in  answering  our  own  prayers.  This  is  done  by 
effective  planning  and  thought.  He  no  more  will 
run  our  ships,  or  engineer  our  railways,  by  the 
simple  means  of  prayer  than  an  earthly  father 
will,  or  can,  study  his  little  boy's  lesson  for  him 
because  the  boy  wishes  to  play  instead  of  study- 
ing. The  boy  must  do  for  himself  all  he  has 
power  to  do,  or  he  gets  no  growth.  The  father's 
"  No  "  in  such  a  case  is  really  an  answer  to  the 
boy's  desire  to  become  a  good  scholar,  though  the 


THE    LORD'S    PRAYER  Page  49 

boy  does  not  see  it  so.  Development  must  come 
through  discipline;  and  prayers,  unanswered  to 
our  mortal  eyes,  are  often  God's  tenderest  and 
most  comprehending  replies  to  the  best  wishes  of 
our  hearts,  if  only  we  knew  it.  Rabindranath 
Tagore,  the  Bengali  poet,  says :  "  My  desires  are 
many  and  my  cry  is  pitiful,  but  ever  thou  didst 
save  me  by  hard  refusals;  and  this  strong  mercy 
has  been  wrought  into  my  life  through  and 
through."  The  form  of  our  petition  may  be  de- 
nied, but  the  substance  granted.  Ah,  if  we  could 
only  foresee  what  consequences  would  follow  if 
God  would  grant  the  desire  for  which  we  cry  out 
to  him,  how  differently  we  would  pray !  Remem- 
ber, 

More  things  are  wrought  by  prayer 

Than  this  world  dreams  of; 

Prayer  moves  the  Hand  which  moves  the  world. 

"  Us  "  is  the  next  word  in  the  third  petition. 
It  keeps  up  the  ideal  of  brotherhood.  Us  of  the 
unquiet  heart  who  toil  that  others  may  luxuriate ; 
us,  children  of  one  Father,  some  highly  cul- 
tured, some  very  deficient  in  skill  or  wit ;  us  who 
sin;  us  who  are  of  the  great  army  of  the  sinned- 
against;  us  who  employ  and  us  who  are  em- 


PageSO  THE    MESSAGE    OF 

ployed!  In  the  mystic  brotherhood  in  which 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  Beloved  Son  and  the  Elder 
Brother  we  beg  for  daily  bread. 

"  This  day  "  is  the  next  phrasing.  It  is  deft 
phrasing.  Daily  supply  for  daily  needs  is  all  we 
are  warranted  in  asking  for.  All  anxious,  cark- 
ing  care  for  tomorrow  and  its  needs  is  to  be  left 
with  God.  Have  you  noticed  that  it  is  almost 
never  today's  necessities  that  burden  ?  It  is  some 
tormenting  anxiety  about  tomorrow.  The  black, 
bitter,  and  unendurable  sorrow  which  shadows 
our  present  is  our  future.  Why  not,  says  Christ, 
leave  tomorrow's  bread  for  tomorrow's  day,  and 
so  halve  your  care  ?  Anxiety  for  the  morrow  is 
not  helpful  to  the  worker  nor  conducive  to  good 
work.  It  is  not  psychologically  wise.  It  is  not 
conducive  to  honesty,  nor  to  that  joyous  trust 
which  carries  many  a  man  over  a  rough  pathway. 

So  fear  nothing,  dear  heart.  Work  today  to 
the  full  strength  of  today's  requirements;  pray 
today  for  the  full  supply  of  today's  needs;  trust 
God  today  for  tomorrow's  sure  supplies.  Tomor- 
row, work  again,  pray  again,  trust  again.  Those 
are  your  orders.  In  Philippians  4  :  19  read, 
"  My  God  shall  supply  all  your  need  according  to 
his  riches  in  glory  by  Christ  Jesus."    This  has 


THE    LORD'S    PRAYER  Page  51 

been  called  "  The  Christian's  Check-book."  The 
banker  is  "  my  God  " ;  the  promise  to  pay  is  "  shall 
supply  " ;  the  amount  to  draw  is  ''  all  you  need  " 
the  guaranty  is  "  according  to  the  bank's  riches  " 
the  location  of  bank  and  banker  is  ''  in  glory  " 
the  indorser  is  "  Christ  Jesus." 

''  Our  daily  bread."  Of  all  the  myriad  de- 
mands which  the  body  makes  upon  our  attention 
the  most  imperious  and  irresistible  is  hunger. 
When  hunger  dominates,  every  other  appetite 
stands  aside.  It  has  made  men  forget  that  they 
were  men  and  act  as  if  they  were  jungle  beasts. 
Hunger  is  nature's  call  for  body-building  ma- 
terial, just  as  brick  or  mortar  is  the  builder's  call. 
It  was  very  thoughtful  of  our  Lord  to  pause  and 
put  such  a  petition  in  the  very  center  of  prayer. 

How  near  famine  always  is !  A  year  of  blight, 
of  war,  of  insect  ravages,  of  freezing  weather,  of 
burning  suns  that  shrivel  and  scorch,  of  floods  or 
drought — and  the  dread  thing  has  come.  He 
could,  but  fortunately  the  God  of  the  harvest  does 
not,  permit  these  disasters  to  come  universally. 
Once  he  did,  but  the  colorful  bow  in  the  cloud 
often  recalls  his  promise  that  it  shall  not  occur 
again.  We  hear  of  local  famines — now  in  Ire- 
land, now  in  India,  now  in  Japan.     But  they  are 


Page  52  THE   MESSAGE    OF 

local,  not  universal,  and  the  Father  has  provided 
that  help  shall  even  there  be  brought  in  times  of 
stress.     Man,  unwittingly  guided  by  Providence, 
is  sent  as  God's  agent  to  secure  a  ration  balance 
where  the  supply  has  failed.     For  his  own  com- 
mercial ends,  man  constructs  vessels,  invents  new 
and   swifter   vehicles   of   transportation,   labors 
across  mountains  and  over  seas ;  under  steam  and 
sail  he  travels  day  and  night  that  he  may  be  God's 
minister  to  carry  bread  to  the  eater  and  seed  to 
the  sower.     Wherever  there  is  a  surplus  of  any 
commodity  he  is  led  to  pick  it  up  and  carry  it  to 
some  locality  where  it  is  lacking,  unconsciously 
answering    with    God    man's    Fourth    Petition. 
Thus  food  and  the  empowering  conditions  for 
gathering  and   distributing  it  are  gifts   of  the 
Father,  who  bids  you  pray,  "  Give  us  this  day  our 
daily  bread." 

''  He  sendeth  forth  his  commandment  upon  the 
earth,  and  filleth  man  with  the  finest  of  the  wheat. 
He  giveth  food  to  all  flesh." 

*'  Our  " ;  worked  for,  paid  for,  earned  by  our 
own  exertions,  not  the  bread  of  charity,  handed 
out  to  idle  and  lazy  people.  Our  own  portion  of 
thy  bounteous  store  is  what  the  petition  asks  for. 
Is   it  manna  we  need?     Is  it  the  ministry  of 


THE    LORD'S    PRAYER  Page  53 

ravens?  Is  it  a  sheet  full  of  four-footed  beasts, 
tied  up  with  a  great  lesson?  We  do  not  know. 
Mete  it  out  to  us,  Our  Father,  just  as  thou  seest 
best. 

"  Daily  " ;  not  intermittent.  Not  impermanent. 
Not  a  feast  today  and  a  fast  tomorrow.  Not  op- 
portunity to  earn  for  one  period,  and  idleness  the 
next.  But  daily.  Our  Lord  well  knew  the  value 
of  the  small,  constant,  well-earned  income  rather 
than  the  fitful  donation  or  the  doubtful  blessing 
of  inherited  wealth.  "  Daily  "  leaves  the  future 
in  God's  hands.    Where  could  it  better  be  left  ? 

"  Bread  " ;  a  word  for  a  type ;  the  universal 
food;  the  staff  of  life.  How  much  bread ?  The 
quantity  is  not  to  be  stated.  Leave  that  with  the 
Father  who  alone  knows  what  demands  are  to  be 
made  this  day  upon  your  strength  or  how  far 
afield  you  are  to  be  carried. 

Yes,  leave  it  with  him. 
The  lilies  all  do 

And  they  grow. 
They  grow  in  the  sun 
And  they  grow  in  the  dew ; 

Yes,  they  grow. 

How  much  bread?  None,  for  purposes  of  os- 
tentation.    His  son,  Andrew  Carnegie,  may  be 


Page54  THE   MESSAGE   OF 

entrusted  with  many  millions,  and  use  it  for  God's 
glory :  his  Son,  Jesus  Christ,  may  have  nowhere 
to  lay  his  head  and  may  need  to  go  hungry  for 
forty  days  and  forty  nights,  also  for  God's  glory 
and  his  brother  man's  good. 


"  Forgive  us  our  debts  as  we  forgive  our 
debtors  "  is  the  fifth  petition.  Luke  has  it,  "  For- 
give us  our  sins'' — ^sins,  those  steady  pressures 
which  sap  the  foundations  of  character  and  open 
the  sluices  for  deepening  degeneracy;  those  tur- 
bulent assaults  of  evil  which  drag  the  worst  out 
of  us,  to  curse  the  earth.  Matthew  speaks  of 
them  as  debts,  as  if,  so  long  as  they  exist,  we 
carry  some  unfulfilled  obligation,  some  mortgage 
which  eats  while  we  sleep,  and  weights  our  al- 
ready overweighted  lives,  cutting  the  sinews  of 
endeavor.  There  are  few  who  would  not  utter 
this  prayer  for  forgiveness  from  the  debt,  the 
Nemesis,  of  sin;  from  its  swift,  physical  punish- 
ment— the  decrepit  body  of  the  lustful  sinner;  the 
anxious  hours  of  the  forger ;  the  haunting  specter 
of  the  murderer.    Tetzel  ministered  to  that  phase 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  55 

of  human  nature  when  he  devised  the  sale  of 
''  indulgences." 

But  Luke  goes  deeper  than  the  outside  and  calls 
them  *'  sins " — things  done  while  conscience 
slept;  assaults  against  the  finer  fabric  of  our 
own  souls,  against  our  pure  neighbor,  against  the 
intent  of  God;  dear  sins  which  we  know  to  be 
eating  our  purpose,  but  which  are  so  dear  we 
cannot  give  them  up;  sins  that  are  slowly  but 
surely  burning  up  the  divine  within  us  and  en- 
tailing dire  results  upon  our  unborn  offspring. 
We  do  not  really  want,  or  intend,  to  give  up  the 
sins.  They  are  so  enchanting,  so  dominating. 
We  do  pray  to  be  delivered  from  the  penalty  of 
them. 

But  nowhere  is  there  any  promise  of  escape 
from  penalty.  There  is  a  promise  of  conditions 
for  repair,  but  not  while  the  sin  is  continuing. 
The  moment  it  ceases  of  our  own  volition,  that 
moment  the  work  of  repair  is  set  up.  The  soul 
begins  to  cast  off  old  tissues  and  the  reserves 
stored  up  in  God's  pharmacopoeia  begin  to  take 
their  place.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  great 
Creator  has  provided  moral  therapeutics  as  well 
as  physical ;  and  that  in  nature  are  forces  for  help 
as  well  as  for  hurt. 


Page56  THE   MESSAGE   OF 

What  sins  have  I  on  my  conscience?  Oppor- 
tunities let  slip ;  little  kindnesses  undone ;  beloved 
ones — now,  alas,  out  of  my  poor  reach — un- 
ministered  to,  or  ministered  to  grudgingly,  or 
misunderstood?  Sins  of  the  tongue,  gossip;  sins 
of  cowardice,  lying,  failing  to  stand  by  a  friend; 
sins  such  as  self-seeking  at  some  other  one's  cost ; 
disloyalty  in  times  of  crises,  when  a  little  loyalty 
would  have  counted.  Are  any  of  these  your  sins  ? 
Or,  have  you  still  others  ? 

Have  you  known  Christ  and  not  shown  him? 
There  were  those  who  looked  to  you  for  a  stand- 
ard. Have  they  failed  because  you  failed  ?  Has 
the  whole  average  ebbed  because  of  your  lack? 

Forgiveness  may  set  our  feet  in  new  paths ;  but 
our  beloved  one  whom  we  so  neglected  or  dis- 
obeyed or  misunderstood  is  out  of  our  reach;  and 
that  soul  who  looked  to  us  for  inspiration  and 
the  courage  to  go  on,  has  stranded  on  the  rocks 
and  disappeared  from  our  ken.  So  we  know  that 
forgiveness  from  sin  does  not  include  remission 
of  penalty,  though  it  does  bring  renewal  and  hope 
for  the  future  and  another  chance  in  our  wasted 
lives. 

Do  you  ask  how  can  forgiveness  come,  when 
back  of  your  life  is  such  wreckage?    Our  Lord's 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  57 

answer  is  this:  "  Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead  " ; 
but  "  come  thou  and  follow  me."  Daniel  tells  us 
that  "  To  the  Lord  our  God  belong  mercies  and 
forgivenesses,  though  we  have  rebelled  against 
him."  It  was  never  on  the  Father's  heart  not  to 
forgive;  but  there  are  hearts  so  full  of  anger, 
hate,  lust,  selfness,  that  they  cannot  receive  for- 
giveness. The  vessel  is  full  of  other  emotions, 
and  forgiveness  has  no  place.  This  is  what  is 
meant  by  the  word  as — *'  As  we  forgive  those 
who  trespass  against  us."  If  a  vessel  is  full,  it 
must  be  emptied  before  another  thing  can  be  put 
into  it.  If  we  are  full  of  anger,  malice,  gossip, 
lust,  we  have  no  room  for  forgiveness,  and  we 
stand  in  the  way  of  God's  own  power  to  forgive. 
The  responsibility  is  with  us,  not  with  God. 
Until  we  have  the  temper  which  can  forgive  those 
who  have  sinned  against  us,  we  have  not  the 
spirit  which  can  be  forgiven. 

Oh,  may  I  join  the  choir  invisible 

Of  those  immortal  dead  who  live  again 

In  minds  made  better  by  their  presence. 

— George  Eliot. 

The  Fifth  Petition,  paralleling  the  Fifth  Com- 
mandment, is  the  one  petition  on  which  our  Lord 


Page  58  THE   MESSAGE    OF 

himself  made  comment.  He  first  phrased  his 
comment  in  the  positive  and  then  in  the  negative 
form,  as  if  to  leave  no  doubt  of  his  intent  or  its 
emphasis.  He  said :  ''If  ye  forgive  men  their 
trespasses,  your  heavenly  Father  will  also  forgive 
you.  But  if  ye  forgive  not  men  their  trespasses, 
neither  will  your  Father  forgive  your  trespasses." 
Jesus  recurred  again  and  again  to  this  subject  of 
forgiveness,  going  over  it  at  many  angles,  as  if 
to  make  it  very  clear  what  man's  duty  is  in  the 
matter.  He  said,  in  effect,  that  forgiveness  is 
two-edged  and  cuts  both  ways.  The  one  who  has 
sinned  must  repent.  The  one  who  is  sinned 
against  must  forgive.  ''If  he  repent,  forgive 
him.  If  he  trespass  against  thee  seven  times  in  a 
day,  and  seven  times  in  a  day  turn  again  to  thee, 
saying,  I  repent,  thou  shalt  forgive  him."  To 
repent  and  to  say  so  is  the  duty  of  the  offender: 
to  forgive  and  to  say  so  is  the  duty  of  the  one 
offended  against.  If  the  man  who  offends  shows 
no  sign  of  repentance,  it  becomes  the  other's  duty, 
our  Lord  tells  us,  to  go  and  "  tell  him  his  fault 
between  thee  and  him  alone."  He  is  not  to  go 
and  tell  others  his  fault,  nor  to  embalm  it  in  his 
own  breast  against  some  fateful  day,  nor  to 
avenge  it.     Quietly,  tenderly,  in  a  spirit  of  real 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  59 

forgiveness,  he  must  go  to  his  offender,  when  he 
is  alone,  and  state  his  grievance.  If  the  offender 
persists  in  refusal  to  repent,  our  Lord  gives  direct 
permission  to  us  to  withdraw  from  him  entirely 
and  let  him  be  to  us  thereafter  "as  an  heathen 
man."  But  even  then,  there  is  no  permission  for 
revenge  of  any  degree.  "  Vengeance  is  mine;  I 
will  repay,  saith  the  Lord." 

From  this  we  see  that  Godlike  forgiveness  does 
not  commit  us  to  passive  submission  to  continual 
insult.  What  it  does  charge  upon  us  is  not  to 
meet  evil  with  evil,  but  to  remain  in  a  permanent 
mood  to  forgive,  should  the  offender  repent  and 
say  so.  Our  Lord  knew  the  happy  effect  that 
must  arise  from  the  quiet,  heroic  interview  be- 
tween man  and  man,  alone.  He  appreciated  the 
effect  likely  to  follow  when  a  man  is  compelled  to 
formulate  in  tangible  words  just  what  has  been 
his  brother's  offense.  Differences  are  apt  to  scat- 
ter like  a  morning  cloud  before  such  treatment. 

The  lesson  is  that  forgiveness,  like  the  life- 
blood  of  the  heart,  must  be  a  warm,  surging  tide, 
flooding  the  whole  being,  carrying  away  old  and 
useless  issues  and  renewing  the  inner  man  with 
its  regenerating  purity.  He  who  is  sinned  against 
has  no  child's  task. 


Pas;e60  THE    MESSAGE   OF 

In  contemplating  this  Fifth  Petition  one  must 
feel  confronted  with  the  thought  that  Christianity 
is  the  release  of  a  new  power  into  the  world, 
transforming  outward  acts  into  vital  principles, 
superseding  the  old  law  of  "an  eye  for  an  eye, 
and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth."  If  men  everywhere  had 
been  practising  the  teachings  of  the  Lord's  Prayer 
there  would  never  have  been  a  world  war.  The 
world  war  was  God's  permission,  but  man's 
creation. 

"  Lead  us  not  into  temptation  "  is  the  next  peti- 
tion. Men  are  inclined  to  regard  it  as  very  para- 
doxical. With  great  impertinence  they  have 
endeavored  to  explain  it  away,  to  change  its 
phraseology,  to  read  a  new  meaning  into  it.  They 
have  insinuated  that  a  different  wording  would 
bring  out  its  meaning  more  clearly,  and  they  have 
taken  liberties  with  the  translation.  They  have 
written  it,  "  Let  us  not  into  temptation,"  "  Leave 
us  not  in  our  temptation,"  "  Abandon  us  not  in 
the  time  of  temptation,"  etc.  But  the  evangelist 
taking  it  from  our  Lord's  mouth  wrote,  ''Lead 
us  not  into  temptation."    This  asserts  with  au- 


THE    LORD'S    PRAYER  Page  61 

thority  that  temptation  is  no  accident,  but  a  part 
of  God's  eternal  plan — a  step  upward  in  growth. 
The  self-appointed  interpreters  ask,  "  Would 
God  lead  man  into  temptation?"  In  Matthew 
4  we  read,  ''  Then  was  Jesus  led  up  into  the 
wilderness" — what  for?  ''to  be  tempted  of  the 
devil."  Did  you  think  wildernesses  and  tempta- 
tions and  devils  are  parts  of  the  universe  over 
which  God  has  no  control?  Not  so.  They  are 
part  of  the  divine  scheme  of  things.  "  THEN." 
When?  The  closing  verses  of  the  preceding 
chapter  read :  "  Jesus,  when  he  was  baptized  .  .  . 
saw  the  Spirit  of  God  descending  upon  him  .  .  . 
and  lo,  a  voice  from  heaven  saying,  This  is  my 
beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased."  It  has 
been  well  said  that  God  knows  whom  he  can  trust 
to  suffer.  He  could  trust  Jesus  Christ.  If  you 
are  being  assailed,  tormented,  urged  to  doubt 
God,  to  test  him  and  reject  him  if  he  does  not 
come  up  to  your  expectations;  if  you  have  been 
baptized — and  tempted;  approved  of  God  in  a 
glorious  vision — and  handed  over  to  Satan;  if 
you  have  had  God's  inaugural  seal  upon  your 
forehead,  and  then  have  been  driven  into  the 
wilderness  to  be  tempted  of  the  devil,  my  breth- 
ren, count  it  all  joy,  for  such  things  work  to  the 


Page62  THE   MESSAGE    OF 


maturing  and  cleansing  of  your  souls  and  are 
tokens  of  your  adoption  into  the  fellowship  of 
Christ's  sufferings.  "  When  the  Lord  puts  in  the 
plowshare,  he  means  a  crop." 

Many  a  fact  arises  in  the  psychical  processes 
of  human  education  which  cannot  be  accounted 
for  by  human  pedagogy.  The  nonnal  child  ad- 
vances to  manhood  through  strange  and  seem- 
ingly cruel  experiences.  His  will  is  curbed  and 
thwarted  by  his  parents;  his  mind  is  chastened 
and  disciplined  by  his  schoolmasters ;  his  physical 
body  gets  many  a  blow  from  his  fellow  students 
and  his  athletic  trainers.  Even  after  manhood 
has  arrived  he  can  reach  leadership  only  through 
much  misunderstanding,  much  renunciation,  and 
many  blasted  hopes.  He  feels  his  strength  come, 
not  by  coddling,  but  by  temptations  and  opposing 
forces.  When,  in  sorrows  and  losses,  the  widest 
and  tenderest  human  sympathy  comes  to  bless  and 
refresh  him,  he  feels  that  he  was  born  into  it 
through  a  travail  which  almost  tempted  him  to 
doubt  the  existence  of  God. 

So  being  led  into  temptation  is  not  a  metaphysi- 
cal quibble,  an  unusual  experience  which  a  man 
may  resent  and  call  God  to  account  for.  Resisting 
temptation  is  the  manly  art  of  reaching  strength, 


rHE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  63 

power,  divinity.  Plato  calls  temptation  a  mid- 
wife who  has  delivered  many  a  giant.  Doctor 
Abbott  likens  it  to  a  skilful  general  who  wins  by 
massing  forces  where  the  enemy  is  weakest. 

When  Jehovah  purposed  to  establish  a  kingdom 
of  righteousness  upon  the  earth,  he  instituted  a 
whole  tragedy  of  temptations.  Mary,  about  to 
become  the  mother  of  the  Saviour,  was  threatened 
with  being  "  put  away  privily "  for  adultery ; 
Jesus  Christ,  fresh  from  baptismal  waters,  was 
led  into  the  wilderness  to  be  tempted  of  the  devil ; 
Paul  was  branded  on  the  body  with  "  the  marks 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  " ;  the  infant  church  was  not, 
as  might  have  been  expected,  nourished  and 
nursed  like  a  new-born  babe,  but  it  was  persecuted, 
scattered,  and  tempted. 

So  there  must  be  some  great  blessing  in  tempta- 
tion. It  is  to  the  soul  what  storms  are  to  the  tree, 
firming  its  roots  deeper  in  the  soil;  or  what  the 
blizzard  is  to  the  lazy  and  fetid  atmosphere,  carry- 
ing away  its  germ-laden  haze.  Soldiers  in  the 
world  war  tell  us  that  the  hour  which  makes 
heroes  out  of  men  is  not  the  glorious  hour  of 
battle,  when  trumpets  blare  and  bullets  whiz 
and  the  crash  of  battle  and  the  madness  of  blood 
are  on,  but  it  is  the  quiet  hour  in  the  trenches 


Page  64  THE   MESSAGE   OF 

when  the  leader  orders  inaction,  and  the  tempta- 
tion is  strong  to  transgress,  to  rush  to  action 
and  victory — the  hour  of  self-restraint,  and  nerv- 
ing up,  and  simple  obedience.  These  are  the 
lessons  of  the  trenches.  Is  it  possible  that  war  is 
God's  training-camp,  and  that  the  coming  of  the 
kingdom  reaches  a  progression  through  a  strange 
mobilization  of  forces  which  are  invisible  to  us, 
but  which  persistently  draw  one  reluctant  na- 
tion after  another  into  the  seething  caldron? 
"  Beloved,  think  it  not  strange  concerning  the 
fiery  trial  which  is  to  try  you,  as  though  some 
strange  thing  happened  unto  you.  God  is  faith- 
ful, who  will  not  suffer  you  to  be  tempted  above 
that  ye  are  able ;  but  will  with  the  temptation  also 
make  a  way  to  escape,  that  ye  may  be  able  to  bear 
it."  Take  from  man  the  possibility  of  being 
tempted,  and  you  will  take  all  the  virtue  from  his 
goodness. 

We  have  in  our  Lord's  wilderness  experience 
a  great  pattern  of  how  to  deal  with  temptation. 
The  record  is,  ''  He  was  there  in  the  wilderness 
forty  days,  tempted  of  Satan."  What  subtle 
forms  of  temptation  Satan  offered  him  during 
most  of  those  days  we  are  not  told.  It  is  at  their 
close  that  our  narrative  takes  up  the  story  of  the 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  65 

spent  Christ,  faint  with  the  double  burden  of  hun- 
ger and  resistance  when  Satan  attacked  him  on  a 
lower  plane.  You,  minister  of  God;  you,  child 
of  God;  have  you  any  experience  answering  to 
this?  Has  some  period  of  special  vision  of  the 
descending  Spirit  been  swiftly  followed  by  some 
strong  temptation  to  evil?  Do  not  be  discour- 
aged. Your  Master  has  trod  the  way  before  you. 
Moses,  Job,  Elijah,  Paul,  in  their  black  periods 
of  isolation  and  discouragement,  were  not  more 
surely  under  the  Father's  watchful  eyes  than  are 
you  in  this,  your  lesser  darkness.  It  seems  from 
the  narrative  that  temptations  were  sent  to  these 
men  because  they  were  to  be  chosen  tools  which 
must  be  forged  in  the  furnace  and  tempered  on 
the  anvil.  Is  it  possible  that  you  are  chosen  to  be 
such  a  tool?  Do  not  fall  into  doubt  when  your 
temptations  are  many,  but  when  they  are  few. 
The  word  trial  means  test.  Temptation  implies  a 
measure  of  worthiness. 

For  forty  days  in  the  wilderness  our  Lord 
faced  and  withstood  the  impact  of  spirit  against 
spirit  in  some  way  unknown  to  us,  not  recorded 
for  us,  since  his  temptations  were  to  meet  emer- 
gencies not  to  be  a  part  of  our  human  experiences. 
At  their  close  Satan  came.    Then  began  the  sym- 


Page66  THE   MESSAGE   OF 

bolization  of  our  own  trials — for  at  some  time 
and  in  some  guise  the  doors  of  every  man's  soul 
are  similarly  assaulted  by  Satan,  and  they  must 
be  either  barred,  or  opened,  from  within.  How 
good  to  feel  that  the  Master  went  through  every 
phase  of  our  temptations  and  knows  well  the  force 
of  the  impact.  To  poor,  tempted,  failing  Peter 
he  said,  *'  Peter,  I  have  prayed  for  thee,  that  thy 
faith  fail  not."  What  meaning  has  this  for  thee, 
O  thou  tempted  and  failing  one  ? 

In  this  series  of  temptations  which  were  di- 
rected against  the  typical  man  by  Satan  in  the  wil- 
derness, we  get  Satan's  view-point  of  what  are 
man's  weak  spots,  his  most  easily  assailable  points. 
The  list  is  not  very  flattering  to  human  nature. 
Here  it  is :  Hunger  for  bread,  that  is  really  made 
of  stones;  joy  in  a  display  of  power;  barter  of  a 
man's  soul  for  worldly  glories.  The  list  is  short, 
but  pregnant.  And  yet  these  are  universal  tempta- 
tions. In  one  form  or  another  they  attack  the 
whole  human  family  and  lie  at  the  root  of  its 
sins  and  follies.  They  are  what  Satan  has  to 
offer  you  in  exchange  for  worshiping  him. 

"  The  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the  glory 
thereof !  "    Does  Satan  then  own  the  kingdoms  of 


THE   LORD'S    PRAYER  Page  67 

the  world?  And  what  is  the  glory  thereof? 
Where  is  the  glory  of  Egypt?  Of  Assyria?  Of 
ancient  Greece?  Of  ancient  Rome?  And  what 
is  the  glory  thereof,  which  Satan  so  proudly  offers 
as  bait  for  souls  ?  In  his  ''  Letters  to  the  Clergy  " 
John  Ruskin  says :  "  In  modern  times  the  first  aim 
of  all  so-called  Christian  parents  is  to  place  their 
children  in  circumstances  where  the  temptations 
(which  they  are  apt  to  call  '  opportunities  ')  may 
be  as  great  and  as  many  as  possible;  where  the 
sight  and  promise  of  '  all  these  things  '  within 
Satan's  gift  may  be  brilliantly  near;  and  where 
the  act  of  '  falling  down  to  worship  '  may  be 
partly  concealed  by  the  shelter,  and  partly  excused 
as  involuntary  by  the  presence,  of  the  concurrent 
crowd." 

Have  you  ever  known  a  mother  who,  herself 
yearning  after  God,  has  missed  complete  self- 
surrender  and  consecration  because  she  could  not 
resist  the  temptation  to  offer  her  daughters  on  the 
altar  of  Mammon?  Ruskin  further  says  that  no 
man  can  truthfully  and  honestly  ask  to  be  de- 
livered from  temptation  unless  he  has,  himself, 
honestly  and  faithfully  determined  to  do  the  best 
he  can — and  all  he  can — to  keep  out  of  it.  "  The 
devil  tempts  us  not — 'tis  we  tempt  him." 


Page  68  THE   MESSAGE    OF 

How  did  the  Symbolic  Man  meet  his  tempta- 
tions? If  the  means  he  used  were  derived  wholly 
from  his  God  power  we  need  not  try  to  imitate 
them.  But  if  they  were  of  such  a  nature  that  any 
purposeful  human  really  wishing  and  intending  to 
overcome  a  temptation  might  use  them,  then  we 
may  suppose  Jesus  Christ's  methods  were  noted 
down  as  an  example  for  us  in  our  emergencies. 

Satan  knew  that  the  Son  of  God  was  also  Son 
of  man,  possessing  human  passions  and  appetites. 
Once,  homesick  for  a  home  and  its  sweetness,  its 
quiet  and  tenderness,  its  love-life,  Jesus  cried  out : 
"  Foxes  have  holes,  and  birds  of  the  air  have 
nests;  but  the  Son  of  man  hath  not  where  to  lay 
his  head ! " 

You  homeless  one,  whose  family  and  friends 
lie  in  the  churchyard,  who  are  battered  about  in 
rooming-houses  and  boarding-houses,  sick  and 
anxious  and  laid-by,  do  not  suppose  that  our  Lord 
does  not  feel  for  you,  think  of  you,  long  to  come 
to  you  in  your  sorrows  and  temptations.  He 
knows  the  way  you  go  and  the  reasons  of  its  long, 
rocky  steep — and  where  it  leads.  "And  thou 
shalt  know  hereafter.'* 

I  often  think  of  that  first  month  of  Christ *s 
lonely  temptation  in  the  wilderness,  when  Satan 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  69 

was  weaving  his  web  or  creating  his  atmosphere 
of  temptation.  Where  were  his  blows  directed? 
Was  it  against  physical  desires — those  cravings 
of  the  body  which  work  mischief  with  both  body 
and  soul,  and  which  spread  mischief?  Possibly. 
The  representative  man  was  tempted  in  all  the 
points  that  man  must  be  tempted  through.  Be- 
lieve it,  young  man,  do  not  think  it  strange  con- 
cerning this  fiery  trial  that  comes  to  you,  as 
though  some  strange  thing  happened  to  you  alone. 
Your  Master  has  passed  on  before  you,  and  he 
will  give  you  grace  to  conquer. 

It  may  be,  too,  that  the  assaults  of  those  first 
days  were  directed  to  some  spiritual  essence  with- 
in the  man — something  which  we  have  only 
vaguely  dreamed,  but  something  which  enters  in- 
visibly into  our  framework  and  influences  our 
daily  living.  We  pass  them  by  with  a  sneer,  per- 
haps, and  call  them  the  occult  things. 

We  get  this  great  lesson  from  the  wilderness 
experience:  Satan  knows  our  weaker  moments, 
our  testing-times,  when  and  where  to  put  the 
pressures.  At  the  close  of  forty  fast-days 
Christ's  most  pressing  sensation  was  hunger. 
His  spent  flesh  called  out  for  body-building  stuff, 
and  overbore  his  fainting  spirit.     Satan  recog- 


Page  70  THE   MESSAGE   OF 

nized  this  as  his  line  of  least  resistance.  In 
Satan's  full  quiver  was  a  crafty  missile  that  he 
often  uses  even  at  this  day — sarcasm.  "  What !  " 
he  cried,  "  a  God,  and  hungry  ?  Preposterous ! 
If  you  are  really  God,  you  need  not  be  hungry. 
Your  extremity  is  your  opportunity,  Man.  Now 
is  the  time  to  prove  your  Godhood.  A  man  has 
to  live,  and  the  more  important  the  man,  the 
greater  the  necessity  for  his  living,  even  though 
he  must  temporarily  do  things  he  would  not 
ordinarily  approve.  Do  not  sacrifice  your  life  at 
its  very  threshold  for  some  overstrained  ideal. 
Make  bread  out  of  the  stones  at  your  feet;  eat 
and  live.  God  is  probably  busy  elsewhere  in  his 
vast  creation,  and  he  knows  you  have  the  power 
to  do  the  thing  that  will  bring  the  necessary 
present  help." 

Has  any  temptation  similar  to  this  come  to 
you  ?  Have  you  ever  had  doubts  of  the  providing 
care  of  your  Father?  Have  you  come  to  the 
temptation  to  secure  for  yourself  by  forbidden 
methods  the  things  which  you  crave  but  which 
were  withheld  from  you.  Have  you  accepted 
doubtful  occupations  when  others,  which  your 
conscience  approved,  would  not  furnish  the 
money  you  thought  to  be  a  necessity  for  you  and 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  71 

your  family?  Has  your  body  stolen  forbidden 
pleasures,  with  no  regard  for  the  things  of  the 
spirit  ?  Have  you  accepted  Sunday  work  with  a 
sullen  attitude  toward  God  who  did  not  provide 
week-day  work  that  was  equally  remunerative? 
What  unexpected,  unprepared- for  encounter  have 
you  had  with  Satan  in  some  wilderness  of  your 
soul  ?    And  how  have  you  met  it  ? 

How  did  Jesus  meet  temptation?  Is  his 
method  open  to  you  ? 

Confident  in  the  providings  of  the  Father, 
though  still  fainting  with  hunger,  he  replied  to 
Satan :  "  It  is  written,  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread 
only,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of 
the  mouth  of  God."  Where  was  this  written? 
Read  the  Eighth  Chapter  of  Deuteronomy,  where 
Moses  rehearses  another  wilderness  experience. 
He  says :  "  He  fed  thee  with  manna  .  .  .  that  he 
might  make  thee  know  that  man  doth  not  live  by 
bread  only.  .  .  Thy  raiment  waxed  not  old  upon 
thee,  neither  did  thy  foot  swell,  these  forty  years." 
Read  the  entire  chapter.  Probably  the  Lord  had 
been  thinking  over  that  wonderful  story  and. 
maybe  too,  another  miracle-story — ^the  story  of 
Elijah  fed  by  the  ravens — the  manna,  and  the 
quails,  and  the  rock  that  became  a  spring,  and  the 


Page  72  THE   MESSAGE   OP 


forty  years'  wanderings  may  have  brought  solid 
comfort  and  assurance  to  the  famished  human. 
To  Satan  he  said,  practically :  "  It  is  not  essen- 
tial that  man  should  eat  and  live,  if  God  wills 
otherwise.  It  is  essential  that  he  should  trust 
and  obey.  I  am  in  my  Father's  hands.  His  will 
is  mine." 

Is  this  method  of  Christ  open  to  you  ?  Can  you 
say,  ''  Thy  will  be  done  by  me  and  in  me  and 
through  me,  wherever  it  calls  me  and  through 
whatever  paths  "  ?  Thank  God,  in  every  age  and 
among  every  race  of  Christianized  men,  there 
have  been  men  and  women  who  held  life  cheap 
and  duty  dear.  "  They  were  stoned,  they  were 
sawn  asunder,  were  tempted,  were  slain  with  the 
sword ; .  .  they  wandered  in  deserts,  and  in  moun- 
tains, and  in  dens  and  caves  of  the  earth."  Desti- 
tute, afflicted,  tormented.  That  is  one  half  of  the 
story  of  these  heroes  of  duty.  The  other  half 
reads  thus :  "  I  beheld,  and  lo,  a  great  multitude 
.  .  .  stood  before  the  throne,  clothed  with  white 
robes,  and  palms  in  their  hands.  .  .  And  he  said 
unto  me,  These  are  they  which  came  out  of  great 
tribulation.  .  .  Therefore  are  they  before  the 
throne  of  God,  and  serve  him  day  and  night  in 
his  temple.  .  .  They  shall  hunger  no  more,  neither 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  73 

thirst  any  more;  neither  shall  the  sun  light  on 
them,  nor  any  heat.  For  the  Lamb  which  is  in 
the  midst  of  the  throne  shall  feed  them,  and  shall 
lead  them  unto  living  fountains  of  waters;  and 
God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes." 

The  first  temptation  passed.  Faith  won  the 
day.  "  It  is  written ''  is  a  great  reply  from  man 
to  Satan.  Keep  close  to  the  written  law  of  the 
Lord  if  you  would  have  your  munitions  factory 
well  stored  against  the  day  of  battle. 

Satan's  second  temptation  was  more  subtle,  and 
was  aimed  at  a  higher  point.  It  was  to  assail 
Christ's  spirit,  no  longer  his  bodily  lusts  and 
cravings.  Satan  is  not  easily  discouraged,  and 
for  some  reason,  unknown  to  us,  he  had  been 
entrusted  for  the  season  with  the  body  of  Christ. 
Sweeping  through  space  over  the  mountaintop, 
the  devil  carried  the  spent  Son  of  man  to  the  holy 
city,  to  Jerusalem,  the  goal  of  every  pious  Jew's 
noblest  aspirations.  Here,  on  a  pinnacle  of  the 
temple,  which  was  to  every  Jew  full  of  spiritual 
symbols  and  alive  with  the  memory  of  God's 
provision  for  his  own  in  times  of  emergency, 
Satan  intended  to  arouse  a  fanatical  belief  in  the 
miraculous,  and  to  see  the  enthused  young  man 
spring  into  the  luminous  air  in  a  rapture  of  frenzy 


Page  74  THE    MESSAGE   OF 


and  of  disobedience  to  the  laws  of  nature,  and  be 
dashed  to  death. 

It  was  as  if  the  tempter  said :  ''  Your  answer 
was  admirable,  and  your  trust  in  God  is  well 
founded.  I  too  remember  the  manna  and  the 
quails  and  the  cruse  of  oil,  and  I  honor  the 
sublime  faith  you  so  beautifully  illustrate.  Now 
is  your  opportunity.  Come,  cast  yourself  head- 
long from  this  glorious  height,  and  rise,  un- 
harmed, before  the  wondering  eyes  of  the  wor- 
shiping multitude.  So  shall  you  accomplish  in 
one  brilliant  coup  the  things  which,  in  God's  slow 
circuit,  would  require  three  shameful  years  of 
self-denial — with  Gethsemane  and  Calvary  at 
their  close.  You  say  '  It  is  written '  and  you 
say  well.  It  is  written  also :  '  He  shall  give  his 
angels  charge  concerning  thee ;  and  in  their  hands 
they  shall  bear  thee  up,  lest  at  any  time  thou  dash 
thy  foot  against  a  stone.'  '* 

Has  any  experience  corresponding  to  this 
second  temptation  come  to  you?  Any  tempta- 
tion to  aspire  to  something  better  than  God 
has  decreed  for  you?  To  take  some  short  cut 
into  wealth  or  honors,  and  trust  to  a  miracle  to 
keep  you  from  the  consequences  of  your  trans- 
gression?   Have  you  ever  set  pious  little  snares 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  Page  75 

to  test  God's  promises  and  vindicate  to  yourself 
your  secret  unbelief  in  them  ? 

Our  Lord  does  not  seem  to  have  had  a  very 
varied  method  of  resisting  a  temptation.  He 
simply  used  the  same  old  answer — "  It  is  written." 
The  law  of  God  as  set  down  in  the  Scriptures  was 
good  enough  for  him.  When  once  he  had  said  to 
himself,  "  It  is  God's  law,"  that  was  sufficient. 
In  his  short  journey  through  human  life  God's 
laws  were  compass,  chart,  and  steering-wheel  for 
him.    Are  they  for  you  ? 

Satan's  last  temptation — the  temptation  to  sell 
heaven  for  the  world,  the  grandeur  of  the  soul 
for  the  gaud  of  the  body — is  essentially  human. 
Twenty  centuries  have  passed  since  first  he  used 
it,  but  it  has  not  lost  its  force.  It  is  still  one  of 
the  bases  of  everything  evil  on  earth,  and  it  is  still 
a  favorite  weapon  with  the  devil.  Christ's  hu- 
manity must,  through  long  contest,  have  been 
much  in  the  ascendency  for  Satan  to  attempt  such 
a  petty  experiment.  With  magic  power  he  un- 
rolled before  the  Lord  all  of  the  kingdoms  of  the 
world  and  all  the  glory  of  them ;  and  then  he  said, 
"  All  these  things  will  I  give  thee,  if  thou  wilt  fall 
down  and  worship  me."  All  the  world  and  the 
glory  of  the  world !    Its  pomp  and  its  paste  and 


Page  76  THE   MESSAGE   OF 


its  short-lived,  petty  triumphs!  When  eyes  are 
clear  and  hearts  are  true,  how  foolish  they  seem 
— what  tinsel !  When  the  world  war  came,  how 
quickly  they  were  sponged  off  the  slate ! 

What  was  our  Lord's  reply,  and  could  it  be 
our  reply  to  a  similar  temptation?  He  did  not 
argue  the  matter.  He  was  not  very  courteous. 
He  said,  brusquely  enough : ''  Get  thee  behind  me, 
Satan.  It  is  written.  Thou  shalt  worship  the  Lord 
thy  God,  and  him  only  shalt  thou  serve." 

Do  not  be  too  courteous  to  a  temptation.  Do 
not  argue  or  explain.  Call  a  spade  a  spade ;  Satan, 
Satan ;  hell,  hell ;  have  a  fundamental  honesty  in 
dealing  with  facts,  even  if  that  method  seems 
to  be  elemental,  crude,  and  unpopular.  Put  an 
end  to  temptation,  not  by  toying  with  it,  but  by 
holding  firmly  to  the  "  written  "  word. 

"  Then  the  devil  leaveth  him."  How  sugges- 
tive !  "  And  behold,  angels  came  and  ministered 
unto  him."  If  you  would  know  the  sweet  minis- 
try of  angels,  you  must  first  pass  through  the 
black  gates  of  temptation.  Therefore  you  had 
better  be  panoplied  with  the  inflexible,  supreme, 
written  word  of  God. 

Faith  takes  man  out  of  servitude 
Into  freedom. 


THE   LORD'S    PRAYER  Page  77 


Out  from  the  Sixth  Petition  comes  naturally 
the  Seventh.  It  is  the  cry  of  a  heart  which  has 
known  the  power  of  temptation,  and  knowing  it, 
knows  also  its  own  utter  helplessness.  When  a 
man  calls  out,  "  Deliver  me!  "  it  is  a  sure  token 
that  he  feels  unable  to  render  self -aid  if  unsup- 
ported. His  call  becomes  a  prayer  of  humility, 
hope,  and  trust. 

Deliver  us  from  evil.  What  is  evil?  Is  it  a 
basic  principle,  or  is  it  a  tendency  which  has  been 
let  go  unchecked  until  its  owner  has  cut  the 
sinews  of  endeavor  and  must  demand  assistance 
in  ridding  himself  of  it?  Possibly  both.  It  is 
an  abnormal  thing,  at  variance  with  God's  laws. 
It  may  be  an  inherited  tendency:  it  may  be  the 
offspring  of  temptation  and  non-resistance. 
James  says,  "  A  man  is  tempted  when  he  is  en- 
ticed of  his  own  lust." 

It  is  told  of  a  famous  portrait-painter  that  in 
his  youth  he  searched  all  lands  for  a  type  to  rep- 
resent his  ideal  of  innocence  and  beauty.  He 
found  it  at  last  in  a  little  child's  face.  When,  in 
old  age,  the  artist  had  won  his  fame  and  was 


P^g^  ^8       THE   MESSAGE   OF 

wearing  his  honors,  he  desired  to  paint  a  com- 
panion-piece to  his  early  picture— a  face  typical 
of  the  serenity  and  holiness  of  an  old  age,  beau- 
tifully spent.     One  day  a  bloated,  unkempt,  self- 
slaughtered  man  knocked  at  his  studio  door.    His 
palsied  limbs  could  hardly  carry  him,  his  bleared 
eyes  could  scarcely  see.     He  said  to  the  artist: 
"  Here  I  am  again.    You  once  painted  me,  when 
I  was  a  little  child,  and  you  got  both  money  and 
fame  for  the  picture.     What  will  you  give  me 
now  to  sit  for  the  new  picture  ?  "     But  the  boy 
had  not  denied  the  body,  and  the  soul  of  him  had 
fled  in  disgust  for  his  evil  life.     Never  once  had 
he  prayed  to  be  led  from  temptation  or  delivered 
from  evil,  though  he  may  have  recited  the  prayer 
over  and  again.     Real  prayer  calls  for  real  co- 
operation.    God  is  called  the  covenant-keeping 
God,  and  often  we  throw  it  up  to  him  that  he  is 
not  looking  after  us,  as  he  promised.     But  no- 
where has  he  ever  promised  to  do  all  of  the  cove- 
nant-keeping.    Go  back  and  read  the  covenants. 
They  always  read,  "  If  thou  wilt  ...  I  will."    A 
covenant  means  a  promise  on  both  sides,  and  fail- 
ure of  either  party  is  disastrous  to  its  provisions. 
We  are  willing  enough  to  pray  to  be  kept  from 
the  results  of  unresisted  evil — but  we  have  no 


THE   LORD*S   PRAYER  Page  79 


promise  in  the  word   that  such  a  petition  will 
obtain  fulfilment. 

The  revised  translation  of  the  Scriptures  writes 
the  verse  thus,  ''  Deliver  us  from  THE  evil," 
meaning,  we  suppose,  that  mystic  principle  which, 
like  yeast  or  leaven  in  bread,  changes  and  fer- 
ments the  whole  mass;  or  like  the  plague-spot, 
innocent-looking  enough  at  first,  which  spreads 
and  spreads,  and  creates  a  leprosy  over  the  whole 
body.  But  weakness,  disease,  degeneration,  be- 
queathments  of  evil  ancestors — ^these,  evil  though 
they  be,  and  powerful  to  breed  further  trou- 
bles, these  are  not  the  evil.  They  are  but  the 
results  and  ramifications  of  it.  But  we  are  al- 
lowed to  be  much  in  pra3^er  for  deliverance  from 
these  results,  and  the  one  hope  we  have  for  relief 
is  the  fact  that  Jesus,  our  Lord,  taught  us  to  pray 
for  it.  It  is  certain,  then,  that  evil  is  not  hope- 
lessly ineradicable,  not  permanently  victorious. 

How  was  Christ  delivered  from  the  evil  of 
Satan's  temptations  ?  This  was  his  reply :  "  Wor- 
ship the  Lord  thy  God,  and  serve  him  only." 
Such  is  the  prescription  of  the  Great  Physician 
for  keeping  a  man  secure.  Keep  your  fellowship 
with  the  Lord  God  intimate  and  constant.  Make 
his  written  word  a  part  of  your  knightly  panoply. 


Page80  THE   MESSAGE    OF 

How  beautiful  and  suggestive,  yea,  how  com- 
forting, are  the  next  words  in  the  story  of  Temp- 
tation and  Deliverance,  ''  Then  the  devil  leaveth 
him,  and  behold,  angels  came  and  ministered  unto 
him."  Did  you  know  you  were  being  watched 
while  temptation  was  winnowing  you?  Did  you 
think,  poor,  harried  soul,  that  you  were  alone? 
Why,  you  were  being  compassed  about  with  a 
great  cloud  of  witnesses.  When  thou  passest 
through  the  waters,  they  shall  not  overflow  thee ; 
when  thou  walkest  through  the  fires,  thou  shalt 
not  be  burned.  Cast  all  your  cares  upon  him,  for 
he  careth  for  you.  Even  the  hairs  of  your  head 
are  numbered.  Believe  that  your  Father  know- 
eth  what  things  you  have  need  of. 

"  Then  the  devil  left  him."  When?  When  his 
trust  in  God  was  complete  and  manifest.  I  read 
in  the  New  Testament  these  words,  "  Ye  shall 
have  power,"  and  I  ask,  When?  I  long  for 
power.  When  can  I  have  it  ?  Listen,  "  When  the 
Holy  Ghost  has  come  upon  you."  That  is  my 
passport  to  power.    There  is  none  other. 

In  a  long  life  I  have  met  many  a  soul  who  has 
been  bowed  down  with  grief  and  discouragement, 
who  has  almost  lost  faith  in  himself,  because  he 
was  feeling  the  power  of  temptation.    He  thought 


THE   LORD'S    PRAYER       Page  81 

his  temptation  was  a  sin  of  his  own,  and  it  took 
the  sunshine  out  of  his  life;  it  almost  took  away 
his  power  to  overcome  some  worse  temptation. 
Really  the  time  to  doubt  yourself  is  when  your 
temptations  are  few.     If  you  were  not  possessed 
of  something  valuable,  Satan  would  hardly  care 
to  waste  time  in  tempting  you.     The  man  who 
lives  in  a  hut  does  not  believe  in  burglars.    He 
listens  to  such  stories  as  a  fairy-tale  of  the  rich. 
*'Why,"  he  says,  "my  house  lies  open  all  the 
time,  and  I  am  never  burglarized."    Does  Satan 
assault  you?    There  must  be  something  noble  in 
you  which  he  would  steal  from  you ;  some  high 
desire  he  would  extract  from  you;  some  half- 
winged  prayer  he  would  deflect  from  heaven's  ear. 
Does  the  Father  permit  temptation  to  assault 
you  ?    There  must  be  some  virtue  he  would  chisel 
and  shape.     He  must,  like  the  sculptor,  see  in 
your  hard  marble  form  some  angel  imprisoned 
whom  he  would  liberate  and  glorify,  even  if  it 
must  be  done  with  hammer  and  mallet,  and  hard 
pressures,  and  much  cutting  away.    It  was  imme- 
diately after  the  Voice  had  testified,  "  This  is  my 
beloved  Son  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased,"  that 
Jesus  was  led  up  of  the  Spirit  to  be  tempted  of 
the  devil. 


Page  82  THE   MESSAGE   OF 

So  we  may  safely  pray,  "  Deliver  us  from  evil  " 
— as  Elijah  was  delivered  at  Cherith;  as  Elisha 
was  delivered  at  Dothan ;  as  David  was  delivered 
from  Goliath ;  as  the  apostles  were  delivered  from 
prison;  as  the  Allies  were  delivered  at  Piave;  as 
many  a  trusting,  praying,  sorrowful  saint  is  being 
delivered  today  in  the  silence  and  quietness  of  her 
lonely  chamber. 

There  are  two  very  suggestive  correlative  pas- 
sages in  the  Bible.  One  is  found  in  the  eleventh 
chapter  of  Hebrews.    It  tells  of  the  martyrs. 

"  These  all  died."  Was  that  the  last  of  them? 
Was  it  worth  while  for  them  to  suffer  so  and 
trust  so  and  follow  a  vision?  They  died.  What 
a  gloomy  picture !  What  a  waste  of  those  splen- 
did virtues — hope  and  faith  and  trust  in  God ! 

Listen.  Here  is  the  correlative  passage.  It  is 
found  in  that  wonder-book  which  as  yet  no  man 
has  fathomed.  We  read :  "  After  this  I  beheld, 
and  lo,  a  great  multitude,  which  no  man  could 
number,  of  all  nations,  and  kindreds,  and  peoples 
and  tongues,  stood  before  the  throne,  and  before 
the  Lamb,  clothed  with  white  robes,  and  palms 
in  their  hands."  Palms  are  for  victors.  Palms 
are  for  live  people,  not  dead  ones.  "  And  one  of 
the  elders  answered,  saying  unto  me,  What  are 


THE   LORD'S    PRAYER  Pagc83 

these  which  are  arrayed  in  white  robes?  and 
whence  came  they?  .  .  And  he  said  unto  me, 
These  are  they  which  came  out  of  great  tribula- 
tion. ,  .  Therefore  are  they  before  the  throne  of 
God.  .  .  They  shall  hunger  no  more,  neither 
thirst  any  more;  neither  shall  the  sun  light  on 
them,  nor  any  heat.  .  .  And  God  shall  wipe  away 
all  tears  from  their  eyes." 

Thank  God  for  the  courageous  souls  who  daily 
pray  this  Seventh  Petition,  and  then  go  out  to 
their  daily  tasks — in  dimness  often,  often  misun- 
derstood, sometimes  in  the  rout  of  despair;  fall- 
ing, rising,  following  the  star  as  best  they  may. 
They  inspire  lesser  souls  by  their  courage  and 
their  wonderful  trust. 


Such  is  the  Lord's  Prayer.  It  is  not  a  form, 
or  a  ritual.  It  is  a  model.  It  covers  every  essen- 
tial feature  of  petition,  aspiration,  praise.  It  has 
nourished  the  spiritual  life  of  many  generations. 
Soldiers  in  the  trenches  bear  witness  that  it 
strengthened  their  arms  and  nerved  their  hearts 
in  many  a  far-flung  battle.  It  has  witnessed  the 
crumbling  of  many  systems  of  theology,  con- 
stantly adjusting  itself  to  progressive  thought.  It 
is  the  wonder  of  the  world. 


Page  84  THE    MESSAGE    OF 


The  Lord's  Prayer  is  recorded  only  by  Mat- 
thew and  Luke.  Matthew  adds  the  rich,  helpful, 
praiseful  doxology :  ''  For  thine  is  the  kingdom, 
and  the  power,  and  the  glory,  forever.  Amen." 
A  few  versions  of  the  New  Testament,  as  the 
Syriac,  the  oldest  of  them  all,  have  this  doxology. 
Luke  excludes  it  altogether,  closing  the  prayer 
with  the  petition  "  Deliver  us  from  evil,"  as  if 
leaving  the  soul  alone  at  the  altar,  alone  with  God 
and  with  a  definite  remembrance  of  the  persis- 
tency of  temptation,  man's  impotence,  and  his  en- 
tire dependence  on  the  Father  for  deliverance. 
Luke  tells  how  the  disciples,  jealous  of  the  fol- 
lowers of  John  the  Baptist,  asked  for  some  ritual 
of  prayer,  and  received  this  simple  model,  ad- 
dressed to  the  inner  man  and  the  secret  things  of 
the  soul.  Possibly  the  disciples  expected  some- 
thing directed  against  their  enemies — something 
vindictive  and  blasting.  We  know  the  Baptist's 
fearless  way  of  speaking  to  the  multitudes  and 
his  open  rebuke  of  secret  sins.  If  he  had  given  a 
form  of  prayer,  we  may  be  sure  it  would  have 
been  strenuous  enough. 


THE    LORD'S    PRAYER  Page  85 

However  commentators  may  differ  as  to  the 
authenticity  of  the  doxology,  all  are  agreed  that 
it  forms  a  beautiful  and  appropriate  ending  to 
this  pregnant  prayer,  referring,  as  it  does,  man's 
thought  from  self  and  the  demands  of  self  to 
God's  kingdom,  power,  and  glory,  hallowing  his 
name  on  the  way  from  the  closet  to  the  world.  It 
is  largely  taken  from  David's  benediction  at  that 
time  when  the  people  freely  offered  their  trea- 
sures for  the  house  of  God. 

AMEN 


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